
Qass. 
Book. 



4 



FIFTY YEARS' REMINISCENCES 

OF 

NEW-YORK; 

OH, 

FLOWERS FROM THE GARDEN OF LAURIE TODD. 





^'f^V^'x/O y>^'lh^:r/^%U^o4^^>^i^ 




FIFTY YEARS' 
REMINISCENCES OF NE¥-YORK, 

OR, 

OF 

LAURIE TODD: 



BEING A COLLECTION OF FUGITIVE PIECES WHICH APPEARED 

IN THE NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS OF THE DAY. 

FOR THE LAST THIRTY YEARS ; 

INCLUDING, 

TALES OF THE SUGAR-HOUSE [PRISON] IN LIBERTY-STREET; 

THE YELLOW-FEVER IN NEW-YORK, FROM 1798 TO 1822; 

TRADITIONS AND ANECDOTES OF THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION, 

&c. &c. &c. <S:c. 

OBTAINED FROM ACTORS IN THE SCENES, 



BY GRANT THORaURN. 



NEW-YORK : 
PUBLISHED BY DANIEL FANSHAW, 575 BROADWAY, 

OPPOSITE NIBLO'S GARDEN. 



D. Fanshaw, Printer. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year of our Lord 1845, by 
Daniel Fanshaw, in the Clerk'5 office of the District Court for the South- 
em District of New- York. 






DEDICATION. 



THE WIDOW 



OF THE LATE 



MAJOR-GENERAL ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



Respected Madam, 

Without thy knowledge, and without asking thy permis, 
sion, have I dedicated this book to thee. 

When I think of thy late venerated husband (once my 
personal friend) defending with his pen the rights of my 
adopted country in the 17th year of his age, while yet a stu- 
dent in Columbia College, N. Y. ; — when I think of him 
dravdng his sword on the right-handside of Washington in 
his 19th year ; — when I think of him as I have seen and 
heard him, in Council and at the Bar, defend with his elo- 
quent tongue the cause of the poor and of the oppressed ; — 
when I think of him as the bosom friend of George Wash- 
ington and John Jay — an honor in itself enough for any 



6 DEDICATION. ' 

man — I say, Madain, when I think of these things, the 
name of Hamilton sounds like music in mine ears. 

Thou thyself. Madam, art a living proof that God is 
true to his word. He has been thy support through the 
last forty-one years; when he, the husband of thy youth, 
was torn from thy arms by the hand of a ruffian, he has 
given thee favor in the sight of all men, and made thee the 
instrument of doing much good. 

Madam, mayest thou enjoy through the remaining days 
of thy pilgrimage that peace which the world can neither 
give nor take away, and a mansion in the skies when the 
towers, castles and palaces of earth will shiver in the 
blaze, is the prayer of thy sincere well-wisher, 

Grant Thorburn. 

l^etO'Tork, Ist August, 1845. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Preface, 9 

Fifty years' Wanderings of an Enxigrant, No. 1. . . .13 
Fifty years' Wanderings of an Emigrant, No. 2. . . . 27 

A Funeral at Sea, 43 

Rights of Women, No. 1. ...... 46 

Riglits of Women, No. 2. 53 

The Devil's Church, 64 

Reminiscences of Thomas Paine, 74 

Cheap Times, 82 

The Horse and his Rider, ...... 87 

The Genesee Girl and her little Red Book, ... 96 

YeUow Fever from 1735 to 1822, 104 

Aunt Schuyler's Grave, 116 

Graham Bread again, 123 

Anecdote of Mrs. Baron Muse, 128 

Men and Manners in England, ..... 130 

Obituary, 134 

Anecdote of George Thompson the Abolitionist, .' . . 139 

On the Use of Tobacco, 143 

Reminiscences of Trinity Church, 152 

The Grave in the Orchard, 157 

The Lowell Offering, ....... 163 

Tales of the Pxison— Sugar-house — Liberty-street : or, Anec- 
dotes of the Revolution, 166 

Letter of the Barons and People of Scotland to the Pope, 1320, 178 
Margaret and the Minister, and Lady Jane ; tvifo Scotch Stories, 

not founded on, but all fact, 185 



8 CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Christmas and New Year's Day, 201 

Reminiscences of the City-Hotel, 209 

Old Times ; or Reminiscences of New-York, . . . 212 

A Visit to Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, 215 

The King and liis Scotch Cook, 219 

Rides on Long Island, 224 

An Apology for the Friends, or Tribute to Worth, . , 226 
Romance in Real Life, No. 1. . . . ... . . 230 

Romance in Real Life, No. 2. 234 

Traditions of the War of American independence. (Extract from * 

the Journal of a British Officer.) The Deserter, . . 242 
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, .... 256 

The Middle Dutch Church, 253 

Merchants of New-York, 1774, . . . ' . . 261 

A Bone to Gnaw, 265 

John Gait, 270 

Diet and Health, 274 

Stocking Knitting, ....... 278 

Advertisement Extraordinary, 283 

Galt'3 Laurie Todd, 286 



PREFACE 



For some years past I have been importuned by- 
many [on whose opinion in this matter I place a 
higher estimate than in my own] to collect the vari- 
ous articles published with my signature in the peri- 
odicals and papers of the day for the past thirty 
years ; in complying with their request they are now 
offered to the public. 

Having come to this country shortly after the 
struggle for Independence, I came in contact with 
many of them who were actors in the scenes ; forty- 
eight hours after I stept on shore I sat down in 
Liberty-street, where, between the Old Sugar-house 
and Broadway, I remained forty years; probably 
there was not a spot on the continent where the 
American prisoners suffered so much as in this 
same Sugar-house ; for the first twenty years that I 
lived near that prison, it was visited for the first 
five years almost daily, next five weekly; then 
monthly ; and as time wore on, their visits were few 
and far between ; till, during the last seven years 



10 PREFACE. 

that I remained in the street, I don't remember to 
have seen one of them — poor fellows, by old age, 
infirmity and poverty [for their country never paid 
them as they deserved] they v^'ere throv^n aside like 
useless lumber in some miserable garret, or had 
pressed a soldier's grave. — I never missed, some- 
times from pity, [for many of them vs^ere maimed,] 
and sometimes from curiosity, to introduce myself 
in a civil way to their notice ; being strangers, I 
took them in a pot of ale — a crust of bread and a few 
kind and sympathising words set them a fighting 
their battles over again, — and I was amply repaid. 

But the Sugar-house is gone, more's the pity, — 
generations unborn will search for its site with 
more than antiquarian interest, but it will not be 
found ; however, I can clear my conscience of the 
Jbul deed; have done my best to snatch it ^vom present 
oblivion ; let others do the rest. 

As I never left the city during the seasons of the 
prevalence of yellow fever, I was witness to scenes 
of pains and sufferings, enough to harrow up the 
soul ; for instance, in going my rounds one hot after- 
noon in September, 1798, when the fever was raging 
like a plague, I entered a cellar where lived a man, 
his wife and child; all three lay on one bed; I 
thought the hours of the parents were numbered ; as 



PREFACE. 11 

tbeir tongues clove to the roof of the mouth, they 
Were past speaking ; early next morning I was at the 
bed — their spirits had fled — the child striving to draw 
life from the cold breast of its dead mother; the child 
was taken care of, and the parents buried ; the 
Board of Health did every thing in their power to 
mitigate the distress, but sometimes the inspector 
of a certain district took sick, and days might 
elapse before it was known to the Board of Health. 
But I stop, or I may be writing the book over 
again ; the stories in it are certain, and the interpre- 
tations thereof true. 

Grant Thorburn. 

August, 1845. 



IIEMINISCENCES 



GRANT THORBURN 



i'i'ifly Years' Waudcriiigs* of a" lilaiij^rant. 

Nu. 1. 

" Ex()erieiice is by industry acliieved, 

" Aud perfected by the swift course of time." 

This day completes fifty years since I first step- 
ped on shore, from the good ship Providence, lying 
at the foot of Governeur's v/harf. 

When we sailed from Scotland the mountains 
were covered with snow; when we dropped anchor 
opposite the old Fly-market, foot of Maiden-lane, June 
19, 1794, the small ferry boats were passing, filled to 
the gunwale with baskets of cherries. I thought I 
had dropped into a New World indeed. It was on a 
Monday morning, 10 A. M. ; the sun shone bright. I 
was wonderfully pleased with the clean appearance 
of the cartmen — having that morning put on their 
newly washed frocks. I thought these men must be 
well paid for their labor, and know how to take care 
of their money when earned. Their horses, too, in 
general, were more like the hunting horses I had 



14 REMINISCENCES GF 

seen in Scotland, than like dray horses. The car- 
men at that time were all Americans. The highest 
number I observed on the carts, for months after I 
came to the city, was three hundred. There was 
only one brick store on the east side of the city, and 
that stood on the corner of Front-street and Gover- 
neur's-lane. South-street was not founded as yet. The 
wharves were alive with business. John Jay had 
sailed a few days previous for London, where he 
made the famous British Treaty. [A few weeks 
previous to this, those venerable trees in front of the 
Dutch Church in Nassau-street were planted. They 
were then about as thick as a man's arm.] A three 
months' embargo was removed at his sailing, and all 
the shipping was in motion. Sailors' wages were 
twenty-five dollars per month. Most of the vessels 
were loaded with flour for France and England. 
The revolution in France was fairly under way, and 
the war between England and France just commenc- 
ed. But to return to June 16. [Something notable 
has happened to myself or family, or to the public, 
on every 16th of June since. For instance : My 
commission to hold the office of Postmaster at Hal- 
let's Cove is dated June 16, 1834 — on the 16th of 
June, 1806, the almost total eclipse of the sun took 
place. Bonaparte had his notable days and lucky 
days, and why should not I ^ 

A passenger ship was a rare occurrence at that 
time ; and as soon as we dropped anchor the ship 
was surrounded by small boats, filled with people 



GRANT THORBIJRN. 15 

inquiring for letters, friends, and servants. I asked 
one of the gentlemen if there were any Nail-makers 
in New- York. 

"No," said he; "they have just got up a machine 
for cutting nails from iron hoops." 

Here was a death-blow to my hopes at once. 
Clothing^ excepted, my stock in trade consisted only 
of my nail hammer in my clothes-chest, and an Eng- 
lish sixpence in my pocket. The captain and crew 
went on shore in the boat, as likewise did all the 
passengers, I only excepted ; and not having any 
money to spend, I thought I might as well stay 
where I was. Oil the passage, having nothing 
wherewith to kill time, I was in the habit of assist- 
ing the steward, and thereby came in for a portion 
of cabin fare ; thus I lived as well by paying six 
guineas, in the steerage, as those who paid fifty, in 
the cabin. The captain returned on board, bringing 
with him a fine piece of beef, which he ordered 
cooked for dinner. While I sat on the deck, help- 
ing to get ready the vegetables, a boat came along 
side, from which three gentlemen stepped on board. 
One asked for a servant girl, another for a plough- 
man, and the third if there were any nail-makers 
on board. This to me was like life from the dead. 
I readily answered — * 

" I am a nail-maker, sir." 

I sat flat on the deck, with a large dish between 
my knees, pealing potatoes. 

" What," said he, looking down, " can you make 
nails 1" 



16 REMINISCENCES OF 

*' I was piqued at this question ; and answered, 
briskly, that I would wager sixpence (all my stock) 
that I would make more nails in a day than any man 
in the country." 

The speaker, and the manner, set the gentleman 
in a roar of laughter. However, he gave me his 
card, and I went to work for him in twenty-four 
hours thereafter. 

At this time the City Hotel was building, in 
Broadway. That was the first house covered with 
slates in America; shingles and tiles were the only 
covering prior to this. When they were ready to 
put on the slates they could not find nails, nor any 
one who could make them, for nails were not in 
fashion, and American nailors knew not how to make 
slate nails : they came to me, and I made them. I now 
thought I was of some consequence in the world, 
and that I might make myself useful in this wooden 
country. About twenty-five years thereafter, in pass- 
ing the hotel, I saw them removing the slates to put 
on a new roof I went up and gathered a handful 
of my nails, and now have them in my house. Next 
November it will be fifty years since those nails 
were made. At this time, also, the stee23le of St. 
Paul's Chapel was being erected. 

The first night I slept on shore was at No. S Dutch- 
street, in an old frame building with shingle roof 
The weather was very hot, and I slept in the garret, 
with the window open. About midnight it began to 
thunder and rain tremendously; the rattling of the 



GRANT TIIORBTJRN. 17 

lieavy drops on the naked shingles — the constant 
blaze of lightning — with the crashing roar of thun 
der, almost scared me to death. Before this I had 
never been twenty miles from the house in which I 
was born. In Scotland we have no shingle roofs, no 
such heavy rain, no such blazing lightning, loud 
thunder," or hot nights; besides, there were mos 
quitoes, bugs and fleas, with all the plagues of 
Egypt at their back. I wished myself liame again. 
I slept no more that night, but kept tossing about on 
a straw bed, spread out on some Albany boards, till 
daylight. When I arose, not wishing to disturb the 
family at 3 o'clock, I thought to while away the time 
by opening my large case of books. They had been 
three months in the hold of the vessel, and I 
thought they might be mildewed. Having uncover- 
ed the case, on the top of the pile lay a small pocket 
Bible in two volumes. It was placed there by the 
hands of my father — my mother I never knew. I 
opened the book to see if it had sustained any dam- 
age on a three months' voyage ; my eyes fell on the 
words, ''My Son^ I was thinking of my father. I 
read on v^^ith delight; having finished the last verse, 
I found I had been reading the third chapter of the 
Proverbs of Solomon. I read it again. Now, gentle 
reader, get a Bible and read this chapter — then 
suppose yourself in my situation — sore in body, sick 
at heart, and commencing life among a world of 
strangers — and say if words more suitable could be 
put together to fit my case. You may think as you 
2* 



18 REMINISCENCES OF 

pleasd, but I looked upon it as a chart from Heaven, 
directing my course among the rocks, shoals and 
storms of life. Its immediate effect was to raise my 
liop(is, drive aw^ay my fears, and add strength to my 
soul ; my sick hea^l and sore bones were cured by 
the impression. 1 went forth with a light heart, to 
work my way through the world, resolving to keep 
this chapter, as a pilot, by my side. 

On the following Sabbath morning some young 
men of our passengers called at my lodgings. 

"Where are you going.to-day ?" said they. 

''To Church!" said I. 

'^ Oh !" said they, "let's go to Long Island, and 
take a stroll in the fields. Our health requires ex- 
ercise after being so long confined on ship-board." 

" You may go where you please," said I, " but I 
go to Church. The last words my father spoke, as 
we parted on the shore of Scotland, was, * Remem- 
ber the Sabbath day.' I have not so soon forgotten 
his words !" 

They went to the fields — I went to Church ; they 
spent a few shillings — I put a penny on the plate. 
Some of them earned nine and ten dollars a week 
— I only received five and a half. They would get 
a light wagon, drive off with some young ladies, 
spend five or six dollars, get caught in a thunder- 
shower — fine clothes and hats all spoiled — come 
home half drunk, rise at 8 o'clock on Monday morn- 
ing with aching bones, sore heads, down-cast looks 
and guilty concience. I went to Church, rose at 5 



GRANT THORBURN. ■ 19 

o'clock on Monday morning, with sound liead, bones 
and body refreshed and rested ; entered the labors 
of the week with a clear head and a quiet conscience. 
At the end of the year they had fine clothes, fine 
hats and powdered heads ; but I had a hundred 
hard dollars in the corner of my trunk. They hav- 
ing lived fast, all died young; while I, in conse- 
quence of my regular living, have not been confined 
a day by sickness in fifty years. 

This summer the w^eather was very hot. I 
thought I never could live in this country, working- 
over the fire, so I resolved to gang liame again as 
soon as I had saved money enough to pay my pas- 
sage. As I wrought by the piece, I rose very early; 
one morning, between three and four o'clock, (I then 
boarded in Liberty-street, near Greenwich-street,) 
as I was crossing Broadway, going toward Nassau- 
street, I observed a tall genteelly dressed young lady 
coming towards Broadway ; we met at the corner ; 
she turned and walked down Broadway, toward the 
Battery. I met her, at the same hour, and at the 
same place, three mornings in succession ; each 
time I followed her with my eyes till she disappear- 
ed from my sight, wondering and conjecturing what 
she was doing up so early in the morning. For 
some time I met her almost every other day or two, 
at the same time and place. But, to make a long 
story short, she spoiled my voyage by binding me 
to herself, and to the soil. 

Shortly after this, the cut-nails cut down my wages 



20 REMINISCENCES OF 

to a shaving ; however, the yellow^ fever broke out, 
and the CMi(-nailors cut stick. All the hardware shops 
shut up, and then I had as much as I could do mak- 
ing nails for the coffin-makers. A carpenter residing 
in Warren-street employed the whole time while the 
fever prevailed in making coffins from white-pine 
boards. He had a light hand- wagon, with four wheels, 
on v/hich he placed his coffins, and sent forth his two 
little boys to sell around the streets, at four dollars 
each ; stopping at the intersection of the streets, they 
would sing out, '^ Coffins ! Coffins of all sizes !" 

Eemaining in the city during twelve years' pre- 
valence of the yellow fever, I Avitnessed scenes and 
sights which well might shake the stoutest heart. I 
have seen the babe strivins: to draw life from the 
breast of its dead mother's corpse. I have entered a 
deserted dwelling, and found on abed in one room 
the corpses of father and mother; in another room 
lay three children, asleep, unconscious of their loss. 
From July 29th to November 1st, 179S, two thou- 
sand seven hundred and sixty persons died of yel- 
low fever. After all who could had fled, the Board of 
Health caused the census to be taken, when it was 
found only fifteen thousand three hundred remained. 
In 1822, from July 13th to November 2d, twelve hun- 
dred and thirty-six persons died of yellow fever. 

About this time, having been cut out of employ by 
means of the cut-nails, I started a small grocery, and 
as I generally attended to my own business, (only,) I 
was soon in a thriving way. This being observed by 



GRANT TIIORr-TlRN, 21. 

a neighbor, he commenced the same business two 
doors above me, and under more advantasfeous cir- 
cumstances, and thus I was cut out again. I then com- 
menced the painting of common flower-pots witli a 
green varnish ; this took, and soon became a business. 
This was in 1800. Being in the Fly-market one day in 
the following spring, I saw a man, for the first time, 
selling plants; as I passed, I broke off a leaf; it smelt 
like a rose. I asked the name ; it was a Rose Gera- 
nium. This was the first time I ever heard the word, 
or even knew there was a geranium in the world. I 
gave fifty cents for the plant, placed it in one of my 
green flower-pots, and set it on the counter to draw 
attention, not with the intention of selling it; it sold, 
however, and the pot with it ; and by this speculation 
I made twenty-five cents. Next day I bought two 
plants, and sold those also. Thus I commenced the 
selling of flowers. Travellers and others, seeing the 
plants, often inquired for seeds, and thus I com- 
menced the selling of seeds. 

You see, by this, what I thought to be misfortunes 
were only blessings in disguise. When the cut-nails 
cut me out, I thought it a misfortune ; being cut out 
of a grocery, I thought that was another misfortune. 
But by this Providence was leading me (without my 
ever planning it) into a more pleasant, more respec- 
table, and a more honorable business. 

I will now go back, and give you some of the say- 
ings and doings of the sovereign people, forty-nine 



22 REMINISCENCES OF 

In the winter of 1794, the State Legislature held 
their session in the old City Hall, in Wall-street, op- 
posite the head of Broad-street. At that time Richard 
Varick was Mayor of the city. Some one of the men 
who rowed the ferry-boats from Maiden-lane to 
Brooklyn had grossly insulted the Mayor on his pas- 
sage. The man was tried, and sentenced to receive 
twenty-five lashes on his bare back. A lawyer named 
Kettlelass, or some such name, brought the matter 
before the House of Assembly ; in his speech he in- 
sulted the house, and was ordered to make an apo- 
logy ; this he refused, and it was voted to send him 
to jail. A large mob had by this time collected in 
front of the Hall, and they placed him on a rush- 
bottomed chair, and carried him tip Broadway to the 
old jail in Chatham-street ; on their way they stop- 
ped opposite the house of the Mayor, hissing, whoop- 
ing, and yelling like the sans culottes in Paris ; they 
next proposed to set fire to the house, but General 
Giles, and other revolutionary officers, coming up at 
this time, by fair words and smooth speeches di- 
verted them from their purpose, and thus the mat- 
ter ended. 

About this time John Jay arrived from London 
with the famous British treaty. Congress then being 
in session at Philadelphia, it was immediately laid 
before them. Gen. Washington, Gen. Hamilton, and 
the majority of the men who had just hung up their 
Bwords and wiped the blood, dirt and sweat from 
their brows after achieving their country's independ- 



GRANT THOllBUKN. 23 

ence, thought the treaty was highly advantageous to 
their country ; but the clammen, hodmen, dustmen 
and cartmen thought otherwise. Accordingly a meet- 
ing was called at four p. m. in front of the old Fe- 
deral Hall, on the head of Broad-street, to remon- 
strate against the ratifying of this obnoxious treaty. 
Long before the hour the broad space was filled with 
a motley group ; there was the Irish laborer, his face 
powdered with lime, shirt-sleeves torn or rolled up 
to his shoulders — and the clammen were there, and 
the boatmen were there, and the oystermen were 
there, and the cartmen were there, and their horses 
were there ; and the horses seemed to possess more 
gratitude than their masters, for they licked the hand 
that fed them ; but these men knew not Him in whom 
they lived, moved, and had their being. The mob 
rolled to and fro like the waves of the sea. On the 
corner of Broad and Wall-streets stood Gen. Hamil- 
ton, Col. Varick, Giles, and eight or ten more of the 
revolutionary officers ; they looked on the multitude 
like affectionate fathers, beholding with sorrow the 
frantic tricks of their erring children. On the steps 
of the Hall stood a group of cold, calculating, sinis- 
ter-looking faces ; in their countenances and eyes you 
could read deeds and plans of deep, dark, and daring 
political intrigue; at their head stood that prince of 
intrigue, Col. Burr. 

I afterwards found these men writing huge essays 
to prove that the State of New- York could not com- 
mand capital enough to finish Clinton's canal for one 



'ji KKMIINISCEMCES OF 

iiundred years. When they saw it finished in seven 
years, they would have drowned him in the ditch i 
which his skill and persevei-ance had made. They f 
eared not though the State sank, provided they might 
rise on its ruins. I next saw them as drummers, beat- 
ing up recruits for Fanny Wright and her temple of 
reason, at the time she was trying to engage all the 
working men to work for the devil. I next saw them 
kicking all the poor old revolutionary officers and 
soldiers out of the Custom-house, Post-office, and 
every other office, that they and their hungry 
political swindlers might eat a piece of bread. I 
lately saw a small remnant of them — for death lias 
wofully thinned their ranks — they were holding a j 
repeal meeting in the Park, so that they might catch ' 
a few Irish (not American) votes. But in follow- 
ing these hungry politicians, I had almost forgot the 
meeting. 

A tall fellow got up — (I have known him ever 
since, and saw him a few days ago, a regular oppos- 
er of public good) — and called the meeting to order. 
He miQ:ht as well have told Bunker's Hill to remove 

o 

into the deep of Montague Point. He then propos- 
ed Mr. for chairman. After this he began read- 
ing a paper, but was neither heard or understood, 
for some cried one thing, and some another, and the 
greater part knew not for what they had come to- 
gether. In those days there stood an old Dutch 
house, its gable-end to the street, on the comer of 
Broad and Wall-streets, which had a large stoop; on 



GRAxNT THORBUfiN. 25 

this stoop Gen. Hamilton stood, and began to speaiv 
in defence of the treaty. His clear full voice sound- 
ed like music over the heads of the rabble, and for a 
while they stood still. Lowering himself somewhat 
from his natural style of eloquence, he spoke in lan- 
guage plain and simple, suited to the capacities of 
his hearers. His words were true, and they under- 
stood them. They were cut to the heart, and laid 
violent hands upon him in the midst of his speech, 
and dragged him from the stoop and through the 
street ! Yes ! Hamilton, the right-hand swordsman 
of Washington, was gagged and dragged through 
the streets by a set of political renegadoes, the scum 
andoffscouring of a foreign kingdom ! I got up among 
the branches of a large buttonwood tree, which at 
that time stood in front of the old Dutch house, that 
I might be out of harm's way. Looking down upon 
the ruffians from my tree of safety, I thought to my- 
self, *' What a line thing democracy is in theory /" 
As I said before, death and the yellow fever have 
wofully thinned the ranks of those chaps since that 
day. While existing, they were scratching and 
scrambling over the shoulders of each other, each 
striving to be uppermost, and all grasping for the 
crown — each brother democrat snarling, growling, 
snapping at the bone that another was gnawing at. 
And this is what they called the beautiful simplicity 
of a Republican government ! Simple enough, in all 
conscience ; but wherein lay the beauty, I am not 
able to discern. But I must return. 
3 



2b REMINISCEWCES OF 

Mr. Longfellow roared out, *' All you who agree 
to adjourn to Bowling-Green, and burn the British 
treaty, will say Ay." The thunder of the "Ays" 
shook the watch-house, which stood on the south 
corner of Broad and Wall-streets, to its foundation, 
and the mob ran, shouting and yelling, to Bowling- 
Green. The treaty was burned, while the Irishmen 
danced the ** White Boys' March," and the French- 
men sung '' Da7isons La Carmagnole — the boatmen, 
clammen, oystermen, and hodmen adjourned to the 
grog-shops around White Hall — and the carmen and 
horses retired to the rum-holes along Coffee-house 
Slip; whilst a few of the choice leading spirits, 
deists and devil's journeymen, repaired to the City- 
Hall, where they ate, drank, and laughed at the 
political farce they had closed with so much satisfac- 
tion to themselves. Col. B remarked, " Never 

mind — next spring the votes of these hodmen and 
clammen will tell as much at the polls as the vote 
of John Jay." Universal suffrage was not then fully 
introduced. 



GRANT THORBURN. 27 

Fifty Years' "Wanderings of an Emigrant, 

No. 2. 

" He travels and expatiates, as the bee 

"From flower to flower, so he from land to land." 

I heard much of a country which lay toward the 
rising of the sun, whose daughters were daughters 
of the Puritans, and whose sons were the sons of the 
Pilgrims ; and besides that, of late years they had 
made such rapid advances in what they termed ra- 
tional Religion, that I thought it was there and then 
that the Millennium, so much spoken of by John 
i Bunyan, in his "Progress of the Pilgrims," was 
I about to commence. I therefore was anxious to see 
this people — not to take the height of their corn- 
stalks, nor the diameter of their pumpkins ; but 
among them, I thought, was to be found the perfec- 
tion of the Church militant ; and I longed to see a 
sight so imposing. You will see, in the sequel, how 
sadly I was disappointed. 

It was on a beautiful day in the summer of 1829 
that we took our departure from Fulton-slip, East 
River, in the steamboat Franklin, Captain Bunker. 
After we passed the Gates of Hell, and got over the 
Hog's-Back and Fryingpan, the captain sent forth a 
herald, with face as black as Lehigh coal, and teeth 
like mountain snow, in whose hand was a silver bell. 
Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, " Passengers, please step to de~ 



28 REMINISCENCES OF 

captain's office and pay your passage." Thought I, 
these Yankees have an office of deposit everywhere. 
I was carried along with the crowd, and brought 
up with ray head under the port-hole, or office win- 
dow, when up came a long-legged fellow, squeezing 
along, and shoved me aside like a thing of nought. 
Said I— 

" In New York, he who comes first with his pail 
to the pump, gets it first filled." 

He looked down upon me, but that was all. He 
held between his thumb and finger, while it floated 
in the breeze, a $50 note, as much as to say — You 
see I have more money in my purse than wit in my 
head ! Captain B. with one eye observed this ma- 
noeuvre, while with the other he gave change for a 
ten-dollar bill. Said he to me — "Mr. Todd, it's your 
turn next." [I wondered how he knew my name.] 
" You are getting squeezed among them large men." 
Mr. Longfellow looked as "flat as a pan-cake" with- 
out yeast. This wee bit o' civility from the captain 
gave me a good opinion of his heart and his head. 

The next morning we saw Newport. I was sur- 
prised to see a large number of men building some- 
thing like a stone fence, with windows in it. I asked 
the captain what it meant, and was told it was a bat- 
tery of one hundred and fifty guns, for the protection 
of Newport. As Newport appeared in my eyes, 
from the water, I thought their property might be 
their protection. This, thought I, is another rip-rap 
contract. 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 29 

We soon reached Providence, where coaches were 
ready to convey us to Boston. No rail-roads at that 
time. I stood by my trunk, observing the filling up 
of about thirty carriages with about two hundred 
men, women and children, with trunks, band-boxes, 
&;c. when Capt. B., standing by a coach door, called 
out to me. On approaching him, he said — 

" This coach contains ladies only, but I have re- 
served a seat for you ; so you must take good care of 
them." 

'' Thank you, sir," said I. " It's a precious charge, 
but I will do my best." 

There were fourteen of them, from twelve to fifty 
years of age, some very handsome, one homely, and 
some between the iwa. On the road I kept them 
awake with Sir Walter's Scotch tales and Hogg's 
stories ; and being in the rear, with the wind astern, 
we got along very comfortably — a cloud of dust go- 
ins: ahead of us like a black thunder cloud. 

We arrived at the Eagle Hotel, in Boston, about 
sundown. The ladies' hats, cloaks, and dresses, 
which, on the steamboat, showed colors enough to 
bedeck fifty rainbows, were now but one, viz. ashes 
on ashes, and dust on dust. 

The next day being Saturday and the anniversary of 
the Battle of Bunker-Hill, I visited the old battle- 
ground and monument ; and being alone, retraced in 
memory and imagination the scenes, consequences, 
and results of that sanguinary conflict, and, with my 
mind's eye, looked back, through the mists of sixty 
3* 



30 REMINISCENCES OF 

years, to the beautiful village in Scotland where I 
drew my first breath. I think it was in the month of 
August, about eight o'clock on a fine evening, that the 
villagers stood in groups, awaiting the arrival of the 
Edinburgh stage-coach. At length it arrived. The 
driver threw an Edinburgh evening paper to the 
group, and the schoolmaster of the parish, mounted 
on horseblock, read to the gaping throng, ^'A true and 
2>articular account of a battle fought near Boston, on a 
field called Bunker-Hill, \lth June, 1775," &c. and as 
the British had the story all their own way, the rebels 
were crushed, and the rebellion at an end. A few 
excisemen and their deputies gave a shout, but the 
rest entered their cabins with heavy hearts and long 
faces. 

Little thought I that night, that on the 54th anni- 
versary of that battle, I should stand on the field 
where it was fought. That is the first of my news- 
paper recollections. The matter was stamped upon 
my heart, from the circumstance that that night, at 
family worship, my father prayed God to protect, 
bless, and direct George Washington, and to break 
the arm of the oppressor. Being too young to know 
the merits of the cause, I wondered at my father's 
being glad when our folks (the British troops) were 
beat. At school, you know, ye'rs aye for our ain side. 
But to return to the rational religionists. 

Thinking that Sunday was better than Saturday or 
Monday to examine into the principles and practice 
of this new light, T therefore arose before 5 o'clock, 



GRANT THORBURN. 31 

on Sunday morning, resolving to examine the exteri- 
or and interior of their churches. Wherever I espied 
a steeple for a guide, thither I steered my course ; 
and into most of them I found access, as the sextons 
were either dusting inside or sweeping outside. This 
might be rational enough, for ought I knew, but I 
thought it was hardly consistent with pure religion ; 
they ought to give a man seventy cents a week more, 
on condition that he beat the cushions and swept the 
gutters on Saturday afternoon. I was struck with the 
grandeur of all of them : they beat our New- York 
churches all hollow. I was pleased, too, that they 
did not let the house of God lie in ruins, while they 
themselves were living in ceiled palaces. I saw a 
church where the back of the pulpit was nearly as 
broad as the east end of our City-Hotel : high above 
the minister's sofa there hung a guilt anchor, large 
enough, from its appearance, to have served a seven- 
ty-four ; and instead of tarred ropes, it was bound 
round the stock with thick scarlet silk cords, and the 
wall covered with fine scarlet cloth. I should think 
there was a hundred yards of it, which hung in beau- 
tiful festoons over the flukes of the anchor. The sex- 
ton told me the cloth and anchor were presented to 
the church by a single (bachelor) gentleman, and cost 
a thousand dollars. I thought he had better given five 
hundred dollars to the Bible Society, and then bought 
furniture with the other five hundred, and went to 
house-keeping w^ith one of those honnie lasses I saw, 
the day previous, walking round the large Elm tree ! 



32 REMINISCENCES OF 

Whatever might be his religion I knew not, but I 
thought that would have been a more rational way 
to lay out a thousand dollars. 

At ten o'clock I entered a church which I had not 
before seen. The minister, after sitting awhile to 
breathe, got up and asked the congregation to join 
with him in singing to the praise and glory of God, 
(fee. when u]3 started a long string of lads and lasses, 
who sung out m.ost lustily, to the praise and glory of 
themselves. I turned around to see how the minister 
brooked the affair, as no one joined with him, when, 
lo! there he stood, as mute as a mummy, with his 
psalm-book shut, and one hand upon each side of the 
pulpit supporting his noble frame, his face mantling 
with a complacent smile as he looked under the broad 
brims of the lasses' hats, (at that time the ladies' hats 
measured about three feet, brim, crown, and border,) 
and seemed absorbed in contemplating the sweetness 
of their warbling throats. By his ruddy cheeks and 
glistening brow, I was sure, without any manner of 
doubt, that however satisfied he might be to worship 
God by proxy, in the pulpit, he did not carry the prin- 
ciple into the ordinary walks of life, at least, so far 
as eating and drinking were concerned. I found it 
to be an old Scotch tune, called "French," which they 
were singing ; so I opened my hymn-book, turned my 
back to the minister, like the rest, and sung to the 
end of the hymn, keeping time with the lads up stairs. 
The people looked around, and some smiled, some 
said, **He's a Yorker," and some that I was daft. 



GRANT THORBURN, 3o 

Tliouglit I, " You may say what you please, but I have 
only joined with them who sing praise, as the minis- 
ter requested ; so ' they may laugh who win.' " They 
called themselves rational Christians in this church, 
but I thought they had a queer way of showing their 
rationality. 

In the afternoon I went to another church, to see if I 
could find anything more orthodox. The minister, after 
inviting the people to join with him in singing, read a 
hymn; the organ then played a solo, after which a wo- 
man — dressed pretty enough, but I thought her cheeks 
were rather more ruddy than nature commonly j^aints 
in the month of June — got up and sang most sweetly, 
all alone by herself, praise and glory to the whole 
congregation. I could not see that any person joined 
with her — nothing was to be heard but her sweet 
pipes and the tin pipes of the organ. After church 
was out, I asked a gentleman who she was that sang 
for us, and he told me that she belonged to the thea- 
tre; that she sung till past twelve o'clock on Satur- 
day night, on the stage, to the praise and glory of the 
devil — that the rational church paid her three hundred 
dollars, and the devil's church six hundred dollars, 
per annum. So that, between the two, she cut a 
pretty bright figure. Said I to myself, "If one of 
those pilgrims who landed on Plymouth-rock, that 
cold frosty morning, with noses as red as a north-west 
moon, was to look in upon these rational degenerates y 
how they would sink into insignificance." And here 
let me remark, that nearly all the ministers I heard 
in Boston, were readers, not preachers of the Gospel, 



34 REMINISCENCES OF 

I afterwards went to Guilford, Stonington, Hunt- 
ington, Derby, Bambury, Danbury, &c. and in all 
these places the ministers read their sermons, and 
the people sang by proxy. It was now harvest time, 
and the weather very warm. The next Saturday was 
a fine day for the farmers, and, being full-moon, many 
of them kept their men-servants and maid-servants, 
their oxen and their jackasses, at work till one o'clock 
on Sunday morning, getting in their grain, &c. On 
Sunday morning the bell rang at ten o'clock, and 
then all the people, who could walk, went to church. 
The lads and lasses in the gallery sung for the whole 
concern, as usual. After prayer, the minister be- 
gan to read his sermon; and when he had got to 
*^ Thirdly,'''' I looked around upon the congregation, 
and found them all asleep, except three or four old 
women who sat under the pulpit ; and they too would 
have been asleep, but having dozed for the last forty 
years under the droppings of this drousy preacher, 
and, for the life of them, could not sleep an hour long- 
er. There were about two dozen Sunday-school 
scholars in the gallery, and they Avere amusing them- 
selves by cutting sticks to make windmills,.- while their 
teachers, male and female, were asleep. The minis- 
ter, however, kept on reading his dead language. 
Before this, I was at a loss for the meaning of "Pro- 
fessor of the dead Lan«-uatres," in Yale Colles^e ; but 
I now thought it m.ust mean those who learned these 
youngYankees to read sermons. But why send them 
to college, thought I, when they can buy as many 



GitANT THORBURN. 35 

sermons for a hundred dollars as they can read in 
fifty years 1 But a reader can never be an eloquent 
speaker. In Parliament, in Congress, or in the Halls 
of Justice, it is very rare to hear a paper speech. The 
ministers in the devil's church would be hissed off the 
stage were they to read their parts from paper; on the 
contrary, they deal out their lies in such strains of elo- 
quent pathos, that they chain the attention of their 
audience, and bathe them in tears for hours : while 
many of the ministers of the Most High — v/ho have 
the whole scope of heaven, earth, and hell for their 
subjects — deal out their solemn realities as if they 
themselves believed they were fictions, and can hard- 
ly keep the attention of their hearers for half an hour! 

When Paul stood before Felix, and reasoned, of 
Righteousness, Temperance, and Judgment to come, 
his eyes kindled v/ith the mighty theme, and flashed 
conviction through the eyes of the tyrant into the 
dark corners of his guilty soul, which made him 
tremble on his throne before the prisoner, then in 
chains. But had Paul read his speech, the conviction 
of the eye would have been lost, and the eloquence 
of his tongue would have fallen harmless on the rocky 
heart of Felix. 

We have heard much about the march of intellect 
since the days of the pilgrims, but, as far as pulpit-life, 
eloquence and oratory are concerned, I think it has 
been with an awfully retrograde motion. 

Such were my reflections returning home in the 
steamboat Washington, Capt. Comstock. 



36 EEMlJNISCEiNCES OF 

But I have said nothing of the town through which 
I passed, nothing of the fields, and but little of the 
people. I will then begin with Lowell, because the 
impression is uppermost — not the town, but t\ni prettij 
factory lasses, with their clean, neat dresses, and 
healthy, honnie faces, walking two and two. Queen 
Victoria, (for I have seen her,) with her crown, robes 
and sceptre, cannot bear a comparison. But on this 
subject perhaps theleast said will be soonest mended; 
so I will only remark, that, as I looked upon the hap- 
py group, I wished in my heart that Madame Trollope, 
Hall, Fiedler, and Dickens were there, each having 
at their backs a score of girls from the factories of 
Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow, together with 
the pin-makers from London. I think they would 
have confessed that New England excelled the old as 
much as the parlor of Queen Victoria excels her 
kitchen. But as I intend to revert to this subject again, 
" we will rest here," as they say in court. 

Around Roxbury, the rocks are very curious. 
They appear as if a load of stone-marble had been 
thrown upon a quantity of lime-mortar, and then left 
to cool and adhere. Along the roads and rivers the 
farms are good, and the gardens, dwellings, out-houses 
and fences are generally in good order. The family- 
graveyards on the farms are very interesting. Were 
I the owner of one of those farms, I think no con- 
sideration in the world would tempt me to leave it to 
live in Michigan. What is more soothing, in the cool 
of an evening, than to walk among the graves of out 



GRANT THORBURN. 37 

fathers, where they have slept for centuries past'? 
And the fact that the bones of a father, mother, wife 
or child were resting there, would be a strong in- 
ducement to retain the farm in the family. Every few 
miles the modest village-spire — the glory of any 
country — is seen rising above the trees ; and under 
its wing the school-house, and sometimes a college. 
I found abundance of Bibles everywhere ; and it is a 
historical fact, that where Bibles abound, seats of 
learning much more abound. Hence the unremitting 
endeavors of the Komanists to banish the Bible from 
our schools. Once banish the Bible, and before an- 
other century shall have gone by we will have no 
schools at all ; our days will be as dark as the days of 
Henry VHI. and then we must either kiss the 
Pope's toe, or be lost. But I firmly hope that the in- 
telligence and moral character of the people of the 
eastern and northern States will stand like a wall of 
fire against all encroachments of Popery, and sophis- 
try of Deism, as long as wood grows and water runs. 
All the churches which I entered on the Sabbath 
were well filled, and the taverns, of course, were 
empty ; but Thomas Hume, Thomas Paine, and every 
other Deist says, empty the churches and fill the 
taverns ; and this they call laboring for the good of 
society. Thomas Paine put this, his favorite principle, 
into practice, and to such an extent, that, with filth 
and brandy, he lowered himself many degrees below 
the level of the brute that perisheth. For years before 
his death I saw him, almost daily, in this situation. 
4. 



38 REMlNlaCEISCES Of 

In all my wanderings through this eastern country, 
I found the men kind, sociable, sober and industri- 
ous ; and the women handsome, intelligent, and good- 
natured. It's all we can want of them. 

In the month of May, of the year following, I 
started upon another voyage of discovery. And that 
I might 23ry into the by-ways as well as highways, I 
left all my lumber at home. The history of one 
steamboat voyage on our northern or eastern waters 
may answer for the history of a hundred at the same 
season of the year. It being the season when men, 
as well as birds, choose their mates, you may always 
observe a, reasonable proportion of these two made 
one on board ; and you may easily distinguish them 
from those who have been buckled together in holy 
alliance for some years, provided you are a close ob- 
serv^er of human nature. You will see the fair new 
made owe cling fast to the arm of her natural support, 
up stairs and down stairs, to the table, or promenade ; 
always linked together as close as the bands of mat- 
rimony can tie them. Even in a crowd where they 
cannot go abreast, you may see her squeezing along 
sideways after him, still grasping his arm as if she 
was afraid he might drop into oblivion. Supper over, 
and most of the passengers retired, you will see 
them still pacing the deck, or sitting in a lonely 
corner, like two turtle doves on a leafless oak, re- 
peating their tales of love; there they sit till mid- 
night, or till the cold northeast wind comes sweep- 
ing down from St. Anthony's Nose, or round the 



GRANT THORETJRN. 39 

corner of Point Judith, more like forming icicles than 

fanning the flame of love, admonishing them to re- 

I tire ; they then walk to the door of the ladies' cabin, 

where the imperious law of the boat — in direct 

contradiction of the ceremony — parts those asunder 

whom God hath joined together. No more dare he 

set foot in there, than enter the harem of a Turk. 

I There, with the pearly tears dancing in their eyes, 

I they shake hands and part, as if for ever — she to 

sleep if she can, and he to the bar, to drown his 

sorrow, if he can, in a glass of 'mint-julep. 

I observed a pair of this kind now, whom I had seen 
on my former voyage. Then they were newly linked ; 
now they were settled down, with all the sober re- 
alities of life upon their backs. No squeezing side- 
ways, arm in arm, in a crowd — no leading down 
stairs, or pulling up stairs by the hand, or tips of 
I the fingers, as you would pull a trout from the 
depths of a mill-pond — no snatching at a fan, glove, 
j or handkerchief before it has reached the deck — but 
I merely a very sedate ejaculation of " My dear, you 
I have dropped your fan !" while he very quietly moved 
i on, leaving his goddess of last summer to pick it up 
! as best she could. I could but notice hov/ much 
easier they then got along one before and the other 
behind, in all the composure of true Indian file. 

Should any of my readers think these pictures are 
too highly colored, they have only to visit Albany 
or Boston by steam, and they will then see these 
comedies, or tragedies, acted up to nature. 



40 REMINISCENCES OF 

The next morning I arose at five o'clock, and 
having lit my pipe, sat down in a lound corner to 
ruminate upon the events of the day previous. 
Thought I, I have been young, but now am old, yet 
I have never seen an unhappy marriage but that the 
improper conduct of the husband lay at the root of 
the evil. The temper of the woman must be very bad 
if a man of sound sense cannot lead her along. In 
no case is it the duty, business or interest of the hus- 
band to drive his wife — though they do it by law in 
England. She was never made to be driven. By 
kindness, gentleness, or persuasion you may lead 
her anywhere. 

Mrs. Socrates, if fame speak true, was a woman 
of violent temper, and a tremendous scold : yet her 
husband, being a man of sense, got along with her 
very comfortably. It is written of her, that having 
one day scolded her husband for nearly half an hour 
without being able to draw an angry word from 
him, and finding that the powers of wind had no ef- 
fect upon his placid temper, she bethought herself 
to try the power of water; accordingly, seizing a 
vessel from one of the upper chambers, she made a 
rush to the front window, from where she espied him 
quietly conversing with a friend on the stoop, and 
immediately emptied the vessel ujDon his bald head, 
with the ejaculation of, " There, take that ! That 
will make you speak." Socrates, smiling, and wiping 
his face, observed to his friend, "After thunder, we 
may always expect a shower!" No doubt but this 



GRANT THORBURN. 41 

sensible rerxiark of the philosopher made the old 
lady draw in her head and smile ; and, I dare say, 
when they met again on the stairs they were as good 
friends as ever they had been since the first day 
they were buckled together. 

Now, had Socrates been as hot-headed as some fiery 
fools of husbands that I have known, he would pro- 
bably have ran up stairs and broke her china tea-pot, 
and perhaps drove the point of his cane through the 
heart of the looking-glass ; while she, in revenge, 
would tear his portrait in strips, and, may be, cut 
the throat of his favorite cat ; and then a hell upon 
earth would have been in the house. But, instead of 
this, he poured the soothing oil of forbearance upon 
her stormy passions, and soon the waves were still. 

Men are mighty kind, attentive, pliable and con- 
descending before, and a short time after marriage ; 
but soon they begin to show their teeth, and then 
the fair girl finds that, instead of her slave, she is 
buckled to one of the very lords of creation. Hav- 
ing observed these matters for the last fifty years in 
New- York, I have ever found the genuine, thorough- 
going bawlers for the rights of men to be the most 
consummate tyrants in their own houses, and as far 
as their brief authority extended. Thomas Paine 
wrote and lectured fifty years upon the rights of men, 
and still his wife got a divorce from him for cruel 
treatment. With such facts before me, I would ad- 
monish the young ladies to be very circumspect in 
their dealings with young men of infidel principles, 
4* 



42 REMINISCENCES OF 

for they will find some pretty stubborn articles among 
them. 

When people are yoked together they must draw 
equal, or they cannot get along with comfort. It is a 
man's business to stay at home, when not necessarily 
called away, and share with his wife the cares, plea- 
sures, and sorrows of the family. A husband is not 
drawing equally when he goes out, four or five nights 
in a week, to political or literary meetings, or jockey- 
club, or theatre, leaving his wife at home, perhaps 
alone, waiting his return at midnight, breathing the 
fumes of wine and smoke of cigars. A pretty com- 
panion this, to be sure, for a sensible, delicate wo- 
man of refinement. Such things tend to cool the af- 
fections and sour the temper. And in this, as in al- 
most every thing else, the woman has to bear the 
burden ; for, as an apology for so doing, you com- 
plain of tea-table lectures and the ugly temper of 
your wife. She was an angel when you married her, 
and if she is any thing less now it is your own fault. 
I remember hearing the eloquent Dr. Mason once 
assert, from the pulpit, that there were " other ways 
of breaking a woman's heart besides breaking her 
head." 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 43 



A Funeral at Sea. 



'The plashing waters mark his resting place, 
♦' And fold him round in one long, cold embrace ; 
" Bright bubbles for a moment sparkle o'er, 
•' And break, to be like him, beheld oo more." 

One of our steerage passengers died last night, 
after being six days out ; he was brought on board 
almost in the last gasp of consumption ; he hoped his 
bones would moulder in his native soil, (Ireland,) 
but his grave is in the deep. None of the cabin pas- 
sengers knew of his situation till two hours after his 
death : we had on board the Rev. Mr. B , an Epis- 
copal minister from England; he was in bed, and 
knew not there was a corpse on board till I informed 
him in the morning ; he seemed awfully struck when 
I asked if he had his prayer-book and canonicals in 
order, as there was to be a funeral at 9 a. m. : he 
mustered the materials, and finding all in order, said 
he would perform the last office for the dead, pro- 
vided I would officiate as clerk pro tem, as he under- 
stood I had been clerk in a church in New- York for 
some years. 

I informed the captain of the arrangement, and re- 
quested he would order every thing to be conducted 
with decency and order. After receiving my short 
lesson from the minister, we repaired on deck. The 
scene was novel, solemn and imposing ; the morn- 
ing was fine, the sun shone bright and mild, a 



44 REMINISCENCES OF 

gentle breeze, just enough to steady the vessel, was 
humming through our sails, hundreds of sea-gulls 
were sporting* in the sunbeams and dipping their 
snow-white wings in the transparent element be-' 
neath ; ever and anon as they crossed our path, fol- 
lowed in our wake, and skimmed our stately ship, 
they looked and screamed as if anxious to learn the 
meanins: of this dance of death. 

Our crew and our passengers, eighty-five in num- 
ber, were all on deck uncovered — all watching with 
intense interest the order and systematic preparation 
of the seamen : the body was tightly stitched up in a 
white sheet, not a spot of skin appearing, then lashed 
to a plank, and a heavy stone fastened to the feet ; 
the end of the plank, with the feet towards the sea, 
was now placed on the bulwarks about midships, the 
end where the head rested was supported by the 
carpenter and his mate ; all things being now ready, 
the captain on the right, I on the left of the minister, 
the beautiful service for the dead commenced — " 1 am 
the Resurrection and the Life," &c. in the fuH toned, 
solemn, and clear accent of a regular bred Yorkshire 
parson. The various and intense feelings depicted 
in the faces of the motley group of steerage passen- 
gers, most of them Irish, as they eyed the cloth that 
hid the lifeless clay, the wild screams of the milk- 
white sea-fowls, ascending and descending in quick 
succession, forced on the mind the thought of guar- 
dian angels, ready to convey some ransomed spirit to 
worlds of lig-ht. We were 1,400 miles from land, 



GRANT THORBURN. 45 

suspended as it were between heaven and the great 
deep, and only a four-inch plank between us and the 
gates of heaven or hell. 

When the minister came to the words, we " Com- 
mit the body to the deep," I sung out " Launch the 
Corpse," in a moment it was sinking in the mighty 
waters. " Lord, what is man /" exclaimed each think- 
ing soul ; we seemed alone as it were, shut out from 
all the world, and pausing on the brink of eternity ; 
but the eye of Omnipotence was there : in the clear 
waters of the Atlantic I could see the tvhite shrouded 
corpse sink, sink, sink, perhaps a thousand feet; I 
stood on the stern and watched its descent. The 
buoyancy of the plank, with the stone at the feet, 
kept the body erect, it looked to me like a mortal of 
earth descending to the confines of eternal space — 
perhaps in a few moments the strips of the winding- 
sheet, with the tatters of the flesh, were lodged in 
monsters' jaws. 

To commit a body to the earth, seems like cancel- 
ling a debt of nature ; but though the flesh be as cold 
as the marble of Siberia, there is something revolting 
to the feelings when a human carcass is sunk in the 
cold green sea — but this sea must give up the dead 
that are in it. 



r 



46 REMINISCENCES OF 

Raglits of Women. 

No. I. 

" Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them t& 
mendhig." 

For some days I had been concocting the sequel ; 
"but being a subject of a rather dehcate cast, I put in 
a demurrer, and came to a stand. An incident oc- 
curred, however, which turned the whole current of 
my thoughts. I met an acquaintance, a bachelor of 
fifty-six. Thirty years ago I advised him to form a 
copartnership, for bed and for board, with one of the 
honnie lasses whom he used to stand starino^ at as he 
saw them enter the brick meeting church every Sab- 
bath. He said he would, but did it not. Nov/ he says 
it's too late. I say so too. Says I, " Sir, in a coun- 
try like this, where more trees are growing than there 
are men to cut them down, no bachelor, over twenty- 
five years, ought to be tolerated." Says he, " A law 
made to this effect would be a good one." However, 
considering his age and station, the chap looked ten 
years younger than he really is. He was disguised 
in a clean shirt and collar; his gray whiskers (the 
most hateful article you meet in the street) were 
neatly polished with ivory, lamp, or some other sort 
of black; his cheeks, eyes, and forehead were nicely 
smoothed with violet soap, cream of roses, and some 
one of the sovereign restoratives for old age, speckled 



GRANT TIIORBURN, 47 

faces, and wrinkled skin ; in short, he looked as if he 
might be good company yet for a spinster of forty- 
five. But, with all his fixing, there was still an air of 
solitary and wo-begoneness about his carcass. He 
looked like creation's blot — creation's blank ; for it 
was 10 A. M. and he had just descended from his 
solitary roost ; and he had no pretty little bird of 
paradise to chirp and sing with him and for him. 
^' But," says he, ^^ your speaking so highly in praise 
of the ladies reminds me of a soiree I attended in 
Bond-street, about three weeks ago, where some of 
the ladies were overhauling brother Benjamin. You, 
though, for writing, and he for printing, what some 
I of them termed a libel, in the New World of Decem- 
, ber 2, 1843. But," says he, '^ you had all the young 
ladies on your side. They agreed that it's better to 
go to Hackensack, in the Jerseys, to learn common 
sense, than to be crammed into a nunnery and there 
shut up for life. But the matrons and old spinsters 
declared they would never forgive us for saying that 
they appeared in the Theatre, at Dickens's shearing 
ball, like ol3, sheep dressed in lambs' icooir 

You will now see how a small matter may change 
the whole course of a man's thoughts. Had a tea- 
kettle never boiled, we would never have seen a 
steamboat ; and had I not met my friend aforesaid, 
this bill of rights never would have seen the light ; 
for hearing I had given offence, I thought to bring 
out their bill of rights by way of rejoinder : or rather, 
as queen Victoria said when she went to see king 



<'\ 



48 REMINISCENCES OF 

Philip, by way o^ pacificator. For Park knows that 
ratlier than offend the least, even among the most 
illiterate of them dear sisters, that, had I length of 
body and strength of mind, I would fight in their 
cause even to the boot-tops in blood, as Bonaparte 
did at the battle of Wagram, and thereby married an 
Austrian princess. 

But, as they say at the bar, I have been all this 
time travelling out of the record, but I turn to the 
rights. For the last sixty years the world has been 
kept in a continual stew by a set of vain philosophers, 
wise fools, and simple dreamers, writing volumes of 
theories, (which will never work in practice,) whose 
leaves, if but in strips, would circumnavigate the 
globe — and all this about the rights of man. Not a 
word about the rights of women ! These champions 
of freedom would not even allow the girls to choose 
the color of their own night-caps — for they cut off 
the heads of the queen and some thousands of the 
prettiest women in France because they said that 
they could sleep better in a white night-cap than in 
a red one ! Now only think how profound must have 
been the wisdom of those French democrats; for 
they really thought if a woman's head was once cut 
off she could not wear a night-cap of any color at all. 

N. B. We have got some hundreds of American 
democrats among ourselves who would act just as 
wisely, if once they had all the doors and windows 
knocked out of the menageries and the wild beasts 
let loose. 



\) 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 49 

Next came Thomas Paine, with a huge compound 
of abstract ideas entitled Rights of Man. He found 
time, however, while writing this collection, to mar- 
ry a respectable young woman in a small town in 
England : three years thereafter she obtained a di- 
vorce from him for hrutal usage, and this was his hill 
I ofriglits. I knew another champion of freedom, in a 
! small village some few miles south of Philadelphia, 
by trade an auctioneer. There he stood, with the 
Riofhts of Man in one hand, a cowskin in the other, 
and the Declaration of Independence pinned on his 
breast. He was selling a woman and her three chil- 
dren at vendue : and this was his bill of rights. But 
to bring the matter home to our own doors, and our 
own firesides — here I might fill a volume, were I 
only to give the names of a set of political jugglers 
whom I have known within the last half century. 
They were married to some of the finest specimens 
of women that the world could produce. They 
swore at the altar to nourish and to cherish the 
weaker vessels all the days of their lives ; but, within 
six months after marriage, should their better half 
be any way indisposed, away they go to some ward 
meeting, or card meeting ; or, may be, he takes some 
country cousin, and away they hie to Niblo's, the 
Park, or the Battery. She is sitting by the window, 
her pale cheek resting on her delicate hand — the 
tears, like drops of pearl, trembling in her beautiful 
eyes, while he and his cousin descend the front steps 
with loud peals of laughter, every one of which goes 
5 



50 REMINISCENCES OF 

to her heart like the sharp point of cold steel. Per- 
haps she sees no more of him till he asks if coffee i3 
ready, at 8 a, m. next morning. Now, Mr. Whisker- 
face, is this the way you nourish and cherish your 
wife 1 You say you left her in the hands of a good 
nurse. No doubt you did ; but, except you are a most 
consummate fool you must know that a kind hus- 
band makes the best nurse. Instead of straying out 
and leaving her alone, had you staid at home, mixed 
her medicine, carried the cup to her lips, (from your 
hand the bitter drug would taste sweet,) then sat 
down beside her, as close as you please, and if you 
told her only one half of the fine stories you used to 
tell her three weeks before marriage, she would be 
perfectly well before the going down of another sun. 
This is a ivoman's rights and you are sworn to re- 
spect it. There is not an unhappy marriage, out 
of five score, but where the man is either a fool or 
a rogue. 

There is another class of land pirates who prey 
on the rights of women. New- York, and Broadway 
in particular, is completely infested with them. On 
fine days — for these chaps can't stand a storm — you 
will see them on the steps of the Astor, the Howard, 
the Franklin, City, and other hotels, planted like the 
mandarins in the windows of a tea-shop. If you have 
time and patience to stand by St. Paul's, you may 
see some of these automatons pass and repass fifty 
times between Leonard and Rector-streets in the 
course of three hours. They generally hook arms, 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 51 

and as they grin, look and talk in one another's 
faces, their motion has much of the swagger of the 
Siamese Twins. You may know them by the cut of 
their jib. They have beards like the goats on Mount 
St. Gothard — their slender waists (I am now speak- 
ing o? hca-legged animals, who call themselves men) 
are squeezed up and pressed up with whalebone, 
cord and buckram, till they look like a spider sus- 
pended between the heavens and the earth from the 
leaf of a peach tree. They also wear india-rubber 
suspenders, which are intended to act as preventors, 
(as the sailors say,) to stop the extremities from part- 
ing from the trunk. Now these insignificant simple 
eons of silly women do nothing else but go about 
among the weaker sexes seeking whom they may 
devour, like the devil, their master, who first beguiled 
Eve. She having lost caste, is driven from society to 
the highways and hedges for food and shelter ; while 
he, provided his brown hide is covered with black 
superfine, is caressed, courted, and admitted into the 
best society — (the v/ord best is too often misapplied 
in these cases) — fine carpets, damask curtains, and 
stately parlors, where such genteel dressed black- 
guards are introduced, turn that society into the very 
worst. '' Fowls of a feather flock together." Some of 
our now State's Prison gentry formerly shone in these 
hest societies. In the mean time the poor ruined fair 
one is a stranger in the house of her friends. 

I was led to these reflections by a visit to the Pen- 
itentiary J where I saw among the women some of 



62 REMINISCENCES OF 

the finest models efface and person that I ever saw in 
my life, walking two and two with other outcasts of 
society, under the rod and discipline of a ferocious, a 
savao-e-looking- lord of creation. But as I intend to 
resume this subject if life is spared, I will conclude 
this No. 1 of the Rights of IVomen, by hoping that 
all the ladies between the ages of seventeen and se- 
venty may have good husbands of their own before 
the 1st of January next. 



Astoria, December 21, 1843. 

Some years ago, friend Park, I used, by request, 
to write a New-Year's piece for the Mirror, which 
they always inserted in the last number for the year. 
If this is in season — and you like it — it's at your ser- 
vice. Please mend the spelling, but let grammar and 
orthography go as it is. People, who read my pro- 
ductions, look for something to make them laugh, 
not belles letters and well turned periods. If spared, 
I intend to contribute now and then, and when peo- 
ple find my pieces in your cheap paper, I hope it may 
increase the subscription list. 

Yours sincerely, 

Grant Tiiorburn„ 



GRANT THORBURN. 53 



Riglits of Women. 

No. II. 

" Being a woman, I will not be slack 

" To play my part in fortune's pageant." 

It is an opinion very current among us repub- 
\ licans, and probably firmly believed by three-fourths 
of the whole population, that all kings, princes and 
potentates are naturally born fools. In viewing the 
i aspect of things for some time past, I verily believe 
that the maxim, or proposition, is a true one ; for on 
no other principle can I account for the doings and 
sayings of the body politic for some years bygone. 
That we are all born sovereigns in this country is 
a fact in politics as firmly fixed as the rock in Ply- 
mouth, or the Pilgrims' stepping-stone, (and it only 
travelled three miles during the last century, from 
its own bed-post ;*) and that a king and a sovereign 
is exactly the same sort of article in all languages — 
heathen, Greek, or savage — is a problem as true as 
any in Euclid ; so it just comes to this, that we are 
nothing else than a set of sovereign, blustering, con- 
summate fools. Were it not so, why is it that we act 
just the opposite to every principle of common jus- 
tice and common sense 1 If a poor Irishman steals a 

pair of pants to protect his hind-quarters from the 
— _ — 

* I am told that the said rock has been rolled into the market- 
place in the town of Plymouth. 

5* 



54 REMINISCENCES OF 

piercing winds of a winter morning, or to hide them 
from the prying gaze of the vulgar throng, he goes 
to the penitentiary at once, with but very small cere- 
mony ; but the men who steal hundreds of thousands 
of the people's money at the custom-house, post- 
office, banks, insurance companies, &;c. are but sel- 
dom brought to trial : and if they are so fortunate as 
to meet this ordeal, they have enough of the people's 
money in their pockets to buy them off, though they 
may have been born heirs to the gallows. But this is 
not all ; for, as they have plenty of their ill-gotten 
gear (the people's money) on hand, they are able to 
dress like gentlemen : and all our exclusives, and 
every one who calls himself a gentleman, gives him 
a hat, invites him to dinner, and plays cards with 
him till daylight on a Sabbath morning. 

There is another case in which the folly of the 
sovereign lords and kings of this country is made 
manifest unto all men; and that is, the almost total 
disrespect that is paid to the rights of iv omen. In all 
history, sacred and profane, it is held up as a sure cri- 
terion of the sound sense of the men, that the rights of 
their women are respected. Jefferson, in his Notes 
on Virginia, says that man is made with strength of 
body and powers of mind, that he may be able to 
direct and 'protect his weaker companion, the woman ; 
but, instead of directing and protecting, he employs 
the cunning, subtle, devil-like powers of his mind 
and brutal strength of his body to work her destruc- 
tion. But I cannot describe this operation better 



i 



GRANT THORBURN. 55 

than by quoting from Mrs. L. Maria Child's Letters 
from New-York. Mrs. Child is a lady of modest 
worth, and an eloquent writer ; had she been an im- 
ported article she woiild have been extolled to the 
skies : 

" For many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
" And Avaste its sweetness on the desert air." 

She was paying a visit to the penitentiary when the 
editor of the '' Weekly Eake" (a blackguard paper) 
was brought in. She asks, " Why should the ' Week- 
ly Rake ' be shut up, when daily rakes walk Broad- 
way in fine broadcloth and silk velvet]" She adds — 
'' More than half of the inmates of the penitentiary 
were women ; and, of course, a large proportion of 
them were taken up as ^ street-walkers.' The men 
who made them such — who, perchance, caused the 
love of a human heart to be its ruin, and changed 
tenderness into sensuality and crime — these men live 
in the ^ ceiled houses' of Broadway, and sit in coun- 
cil in the City Hall, and pass 'regulations' to clear 
the streets they have filled with sin. And do you 
suppose their poor victims do not feel the injustice 
of society thus regulated!" 

Yes, my dear Child, they do feel it ; for God made 
them ano;-els — men made them devils. And as it is 
one of the standard doctrines in a republic, that it is 
just and lawful for 7nen now and then to kill off a 
tyrant, provided that thereby they may recover their 
just and natural rights, so I wonder not when I hear 



56 REMINISCENCES OF 

that one of these fellows gets shot now and then by 
the hand of a woman in Leonard-street ; for, like a 
true republican, she is only cutting down the usurper 
of her natural rights. Nor did I wonder the other 
day to see one of those injured sisters of charity 
drag a usurper from the steps of the Astor House 
and make him strut through the mud like a crow in 
a gutter I Served him right ! If the ladies only knew 
their power, and were rightly to improve it for their 
own advantage, they could twist the whole male ge- 
neration like a thread of tow round their fingers. 
But, to be serious — for this is a grave subject 
whereof we treat — there seems to be something 
wrong in the present state of society with regard to 
this matter. Why should the woman be driven away 
into the wilderness, like a scapegoat for the man, 
bearing away his sin on her own head 1 for as soon 
as she is cast out and trodden under foot, he, though 
the chief transgressor, is caressed, looked up to, and 
courted by all, as if to sacrifice her was to make him 
a more pure and better man than he ever was be- 
fore ! He is invited by fathers (who have daughters) 
to visit at their houses, giving him another chance 
to scatter about firebrands, poison and death in their 
families. You may see him walking in broad day, in 
Broadway, with females whose characters, as yet, are 
as pure as the mountain-snow, and who will meet 
and receive the salutations of their friends without 
a blush for being seen in such company ; but let them 
meet his victim, (who probably was once their friend,) 



I GRANT THORBURN. 61 

and they will shun her as they would the plague. 
i Now, Miss Mock-Modesty, why shun your poor, 
young, blasted friend, when you are not ashamed, in 
the face of the sun, in the public street, to be seen 
hanging on the arm of the whiskered rascal who has 
ruined her 1 Here's something rotten in Denmark I 
This is fashion ; and so is it the fashion in Turkey 
for a man to have six wives. 

I have thought of a remedy, and as our State legis- 
lators are now in session, if they have a mind to at- 
tend to it, well ; if not, I can't help it. Let there be 
a court established by the name and title of the Court 
of Conscience. Let this court consist of three matrons 
not under forty, and not above fifty- five years of age, 
bearing the title of Judges ; also, twelve matrons, by 
way of a jury: all their appointments being perma- 
nent and for life. Then they will soon know how to 
do business ; for as one dies, her place being filled 
with a green-hand, the old ones will show her how 
matters are conducted. It is the curse of the repub- 
lic that our officers are all children and apprentices — 
ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge 
of their trust. Every change of president brings a 
change of the whole concern, down to the clerk of a 
dirt-cart. Just as they begin to know how to conduct 
the affairs of their office they are kicked out, and a 
new set of apprentices step in to learn. Instead of 
having inaster huildeis to conduct our affairs, we are 
not even allowed to have journeymen ; hence come 
blundering, defaulting, swindling, and every evil 



rIS REMINISCENCES OF 

work : see the late Treasury Report to Congress. \ 
Every Congress has to borrow money to pay the in- | 
terest of the money borrowed by their predecessors ; \ 
and as we are all sovereigns, we won't be taxed ; so j 
we must just borrow as long as we can find fools to 
lend us, and then take the benefit of the act, like 
other unfortunate gentlemen. 

But to return to the Court of Conscience. Pre- | 
suming said court is now properly constituted, let the j 
injured sister go before the court with her female | 
witnesses. Should there be a man among the witness- 
es, let him make affidavit before a police magistrate ; 
for neither constable nor any of the male creation are ' 
to enter these premises. It is also presumed that the 
court always sits with closed doors. It is not intended 
that the court should take any notice of the man, the 
defendant or destroyer, as you call him ; he having 
hroken his word and frojiiise already, whatever he 
might say in his defence cannot be taken as evidence. 
Well then, these fifteen matrons, or ten out of the 
fifteen, believing the complaint of the plaintiff to be 
well founded, issue their precept to the city or coun- 
try Recorder, setting forth that they, having found 
Tom, Dick or Harry guilty of certain high crimes and 
misdemeanors, have mulcted him to pay over one- 
third of his estate, real and personal, to Jane Maria, 
by way of indemnity. The Recorder must seize on 
the property immediately : if the defendant have no 
property, send him to the State prison, and let all his 
earnings (after deducting maintenance) be paid over 



GRANT THORBUllN. 59 

to Jane Maria during her life ; at her death let him 
out of prison, that he may learn better manners. 
There can be no appeal from this to any court where 
the men wear wigs; for, as the men have already 
trampled on all the rights of women, by refusing to 
enact laws for their protection in this and similar 
cases, it is but fair play and turn about, for the women 
to take the law in their own hands. That this may 
be carried into effect instanter let the women call a 
public meeting, to be held in the Park, on the 22d 
day of February, being Washington's birthday, and 
the birthday of liberty. Let our worthy friend the 
Mayor be requested by the ladies (and being a man 
of choice gallantry, he won't refuse their request) 
to turn out the whole posse of constables to guard 
the gates and perambulate the fences, that no male 
animal of any description may enter in by the gates, 
or climb over any other way, like thieves and robbers 
as they are. Let three of the ladies hold a caucus the 
night previous, and have all the resolutions and 
speeches cut and di'ied, so that when they get on the 
stage they have only to read them, and let all the 
wondering multitude say *' Ay ! ay !" Thus having 
done their duty to their country and themselves, they 
can go home and eat their dinners with a calm mind 
and a quiet conscience, showing an example of mod- 
est worth to those would-be lords of the creation who 
hold meetings there, and who, before they break up, 
get all a-fighting, like the Democrats and their lead- 
ers — constables and aldermen, plaintiffs and wit- 



60 keminisce:\ces of 

nesses, defendants and counsel, peace-keepers ar :' 
head-breakers, pell-mell, all through each other. Tl: 
they caW J'reedo7?t of debate. 

But before I conclude, allow me, dear ladies, 
drop a hint. You are to address the Senate and the 
House (meaning the President) in Congress assem- 
bled, and our o\vn State Legislature, or house of As- 
sembly, which house contains the Governor also ; but, 
observe, you are not to 2?ciitio?i ; for, as Park Benja- 
min told the Moabites at the great meeting of Post 
Office levellers, " you are to remonstrate — not citizen 
jobbers and brokers," says he, "but fellow-craftsmen 
like myself, you are to remonstrate. What ! petition 
for your own rights % No ! they are your servants ; 
tell them at once that, whereas, in our days of igno- 
rance, you made us pay two shillings for a letter that 
was not worth tuppence, now, having opened our eyes, 
yonmust lower the price to the true republican stand- 
ard, or we will drive every auld tvife and mother's 
son of ye back to your native woods to grub trees ; 
besides, we will repudiate the eight, six, or ten dol- 
lars per day, whereof you have been shaving the body 
politic for the last month, by doing nothing — except 
the mixing of sling, playing billiards, and calling hard 
names may be called doing something.''^ 

Now, ladies, this is not the precise words made use 
of by my friend Benjamin, but it is pretty nigh the 
meaning ; however, if you would like to possess a 
correct copy by v/ay of a guide, you have only to in- 
timate a wish and he will furnish a certified copy at 
once, for he is very accommodating in those matters. 



GRANT THORBURN. 61 

P. S. Since wi'iting the above, I have cut out a plan 
which, if the ladies follow up with their wonted spirit 
and perseverance, will insure their complete success 
in regaining their long-lost rights, viz. it will be abso- 
lutely necessary to send on a deputation to present the 
remonstrance aforesaid in person. I thought of re- 
commending six, and had almost gone on to name 
half-a-dozen of such startling heauties as would have 
turned the brains of all the old coppcr-hcads on this 
side of the Rocky Mountains, but, thinks I to myself, 
where we have sixty thousand equally handsome 
within fifty square miles, distinctions would be invidi- 
ous ; and having seen by the commercial advertise- 
ments, that it is recommended to the young wliigs in 
Pennsylvania to send on twenty tlwusajid by way of 
a deputation to the convention, I thought the idea so 
bright it might well be imitated by the ladies. I there- 
fore recommend that twenty thousand go on forth- 
with, armed with their powerful remonstrance. Hav- 
ing refreshed themselves with a night's rest at Wash- 
ington, be up by times next morning, and having 
eaten a substantial breakfast, fill your reticules with 
crackers, cakes and dough-nuts, with a small vial of 
simple water by way of moistening the lips. Thus 
armed for a siege, repair to the Capitol and take pos- 
session before the drowsy Samsons have awoke from 
the lap of Delilah. Fill the gallery, pit and lobby, 
only reserving seats for John Adams and two dozen 
more of the members v/ho are sworn champions of 
women's rights. Let the sitting be declared perma- 



62 REMINISCENCES OF 

nent, (as the French Directory used to say in 1793, 
when at 10 p. m. they had not got up Royalists' names 
enough to keep the guillotine in motion from 6 to 8 
A. M., till Bonaparte, fearing they would not leave 
him heads enough to shoot at, drove out the Council 
of Five Hundred at the point of the bayonet, and scat- 
tered them to the four winds of Paris.) Yes, ladies, 
your sitting must be permanent, and you will soon 
bring the members to terms. They, not being pre- 
pared with the staff of life like yourselves, you will 
starve them out before morning ; for the hungry dem-, 
ocrats must either be sleeping, eating, drinking, or 
snarling after the bone that another brother of the 
sect is gnawing at. 

Having now brought this matter to a happy con- 
clusion, (as Daniel Webster said anent the Boundary 
Question,) I would now just remark, that if the ladies 
resolve to take possession of the House by force of 
arms, they are not without a precedent, as the follow- 
ing historic fact will establish. 

About a century ago it was customary for the wives 
and daughters of the Peers, and other honorable 
ladies, to sit in the gallery of the House of Lords, list- 
ening to or looking at the speakers. The younger 
members of the House were often detected by their 
seniors, with their eyes fixed on the gallery, when 
they ought to be looking at the Speaker ; to be wink- 
ing, nodding, and playing pantomime with their fe- 
male cousins, when they ought to be laying in funds of 
political economy. The elders, taking offence at this 



GRANT THORBURN. 63 

levity, (stupid old sobersides, you played the same 
trick at twenty-five,) passed a resolution that, there- 
after, no v^oman should be admitted into the house or 
gallery. Next day all the West End was in commo- 
tion, ladies in their carriages (no lords there) flying 
in all directions. Shortly before 6 P. M. the whole 
posse of noblemen's wives, headed by the Duchess of 
Devonshire* beset the door, demanding admittance. 
In obedience to his instructions, the door-keeper re- 
fused ; they made a rush and pushed him one side, 
while they entered like a flock of pigeons and filled 
the whole gallery. When the Peers took their seats 
they were confounded to see their wives, and daugh- 
ters that were married, to the number of some hun- 
dreds, dressed with all their ornaments, and holding 
a silent meeting, like a company of Friends. As soon 
as a quorum arrived the Speaker took his chair ; the 
sergeant-at-arms was ordered to clear the gallery; the 
ladies dared him to touch them ; they claimed their 
right as peeresses of the realm ; the sergeant folded 
his arms and looked at the Speaker of the house for 
orders ; the noblemen began to laugh ; the resolution 
of yesterday was reconsidered and laid on the table ; 
the majority felt proud of their dames for the noble 
stand they had taken ; the House adjourned, when each 

* She was said to be the prettiest woman in Britain. Going up 
the Strand she was met by a coal-heaver, all black with soot; 
says he, " Madam, will you please allow me to light my pipe at 
your eyes." The Duchess observed, " That's the highest com- 
pliment I ever received in my life." 



64 REMINISCENCES OF 

Peer conducted his wife to her carriage, and drove 
off as happy as six weeks after marriage. 

Now, ladies, having given you both precept and 
example, if you don't stand up for your rights it's not 
my fault. 



Tlie Be'il's Church. 

<' A simple race, uiitaiiglit in Fashion's school, 

"To ape frivolity or play the fool, 

" Esteem'd it wisdom's best and safest part 

" To guard the eye, the ear — to keep the heart." 

I think it was about ten years ago when Fanny 
Kemble and her father were gathering dollars in and 
about the Park Theatre. They frequently used to 
spend a leisure hour at our store in Liberty-street, 
to see the flowers blossom and hear the birds sing. 
She had a neat little person, but her face was far 
from being handsome. She was quite intelligent, 
however, and I liked to hear her little English tongue 
going pat, pat, pat continually, like a mill-clack. 
She had not yet become Butlei- (to Pharaoh.) I told 
her I intended sailing for Liverpool in a few days, 
and expected to be in London ; she gave me a letter 
to the manager of the Covent-Garden Theatre; 
about three weeks thereafter I s^ave him the letter 
in the green-room. He asked many questions, and 
was highly pleased that his friends the Kembles met 
good success in New-York. Says he, ** 1 am going 



GRANT THOREURN. 65 

to play Richard the Third to-night," and then asked 
me to take a couple of tickets for a friend and my- 
self I told him I had never seen a play. At this 
he broke out with a loud laugh for some minutes : 
" Why," says he, " they tell me you have a good 
house in Nev\^-York, and you have had some good 
players there too, of late — what is your reason V* 
Says I, " I have one fundamental reason ; I always 
like to be in bed at half-past nine o'clock, and I would 
not break my regular rest for all the plays in the 
world ; besides, in Scotland they say that the theatre 
is the * De'il's Kirk,' and the players ' na better than 
they shu'd be.' " At this he sat down on a bench 
and laughed till his spacious sides heaved like a pair 
of bellows. When he had drawn his breath a little, 
*' Well," says he, " take the tickets, be in the house 
at seven, call here at eleven to-morrow morning, and 
if you like the dose I will give you a pass to every 
theatre in London." I was in my box at the hour; 
I liked the play ; my friend said it was well per- 
formed. I was so pleased when Richmond killed 
Richard, that forgetting where I was, I sung out, 
" Well done, old troop !" this set the folks in the 
next boxes all laughing. The after-piece was the 
*' Maid and the Magpye," a nice article and a good 
moral. I remember a case of this sort which hap- 
pened in Scotland, about sixty years ago, in a gen- 
teel family. The silver spoons were diminishing con- 
tinually ; suspicion rested on a servant girl who was 
much esteemed in the house ; she was discharged 
6* 



66 REMINISCENCES OF 

without a character, when mistress and maid parted 
in tears. Twelve months thereafter, when the slater 
went up to repair the roof, the whole of the spoons 
were found in a Magpie's nest. The lady of the 
house immediately sent for her favorite, paid her 
twelve months' wages, and reinstated her in the 
same responsible situation ; and there she is yet, if 
.not dead or married. 

But to return to the theatre. As I said above, the 
play and farce were well enough ; but, just as I 
thought all was over the fiddlers struck up a lively 
Scotch reel, when six /;;•«' lads and six honnie lasses 
came scampering out from behind something like a 
hay-stack. The lads wore black shoes and silver 
buckles, white silk stockings, blue velvet breeches, 
white satin vests, and blue cloth I'ound jackets. I 
thought they looked like gentlemen's j^w/i/t/e*.* The 
lasses were dressed — ay, here's the rub, it was no 
dress at all ; their hair was nicely fixed off with roses 
and lilies of the valley ; their faces white-washed and 
painted, so they looked very pretty ; they wore pink 
silk jackets, in shape like a corset, but wonderfully 
cut down in front ; white satin kilts, not longer than 
what is worn by the men who compose the Highland 
regiments of soldiers in Scotland ; flesh-colored silk 
stockings, and pretty little white satin slippers, small 
enough I thought to squeeze on the foot of Cinde- 
rella ; they were tall strapping queens, and as 

* Servants. 



GRANT THOREURN. 67 

Straight as a bean-pole. Well, the fiddlers bowed 
and at it they went, first kicking out ac Jit and then 
the tUher; they louped, they jumped, they whirled 
and fiang ; ay, man, but it was an airfu' sight in a 
Christian country. I thought o' Tam O'Shanter and 
the witches dancing in Alloivay''s auld haunted kirk 
while the De'il was playing the bagpipes. 

When the play was going on all was still — no ex- 
citement; now all was uproar and commotion; the 
men clapping hands and hallowing encore, encore ; 
scores of women laughing ; ladies with their hands 
on their faces. I thought if they did na like to see 
it they had no business there. Says I to myself, this 
is the secret, this is the grand attraction of the 
theatre. 

Next morning I called at the green-room : 
" Well," says Mr. Bertram, (1 think was his name,) 
" how did you like it 1" " The play and the farce 
very much," says I ; " but the dancing girls were the 
fly in the ointment. I have heard your shop called 
a school for morals ; but if this is your standard, I 
think it's very much below par." He smiled and 
said, " It is true, but we are obliged to consult the 
public taste." Says I, " I would rather hoe corn 
in the month of July in America, than be a slave to 
the public." " But," says he, " you have had some 
first-rate fashionable dancers among yourselves of 
late." " Yes, sir," says I, "but they are not Ameri- 
cans ; now and then we import a ship-load of Italian 
fiddlers and rope-dancers ; men singers and women 



68 REMINISCENCES OF 

singers, live elephants and monkeys ; and the scum 
of society everywhere will wander after such beasts, 
but there is not a native born lady in America who, 
rather than expose her person to the vulgar stare 
of a set of royal blackguards and noble fools, would 
not take a prayer-book in one hand and a wooden 
cross in the other and walk into the flames of mar- 
tyrdom." Says he, *' I know you are a moral peo- 
ple, but you are making wide strides after us." He 
proffered me a pass to every Theatre and Opera in 
London. I thanked him, but I was engaged to dine 
at seven, eight and nine o'clock, and meet with Gar- 
dening and other Societies for ten nights a-head, 
which I preferred to play-acting. 

I remember about forty-seven years ago, when 
the only play-house in the city stood on the premises 
in John-street now occupied by Thorburn's Seed- 
store. One night a fire broke out near by while 
they were playing : the house was emptied, the 
fire extinguished, the people returned, and the play 
went on in less than half an hour. Never having 
been inside of a play-house, I went in to see what 
they were about. They were busy with " The Devil 
to pay in the West Indies," a piece in high repute 
in those days. But as I could not understand what 
they were at on the stage, I took a look at the 
folks in the boxes, pit, and gallery. I saw respecta- 
ble women from Broadway and Pearl-street in the 
boxes — (no Jones or Bond-streets, no Park or 
Swamp-Place in those days,) men, women and chil- 



GSANT THORBURN. 69 

dren in the pit, a motley group — and Blacksmiths* 
apprentices and Canvastown girls in the gallery. 
(No Church or Leonard-streets in those days. Can- 
vas-town, now Whitehall, manufactory is at present 
'ocated in Walnut-steet.) I saw mothers of forty, 
with their daughters of twenty, sitting in all the im- 
modesty of undress. I knew many of them by name 
and number. Some were members of Churches. 
Said I to myself, " You dare not, for the life of you, 
be seen in church rigged out in that fashion." The 
next place I saw any of those ladies was in church, 
there they sat, in modest apparel and decorum of 
manner, reading their prayers and making their re- 
sponses with faces as long as their hat-bands. I 
thought they must have a conscience for Sundays, 
and a conscience for Mondays — a dress for the house 
of God,, and an undress for the synagogue of Satan. 
There is something- so fascinating- in dramatic re- 
presentations to boys of from fourteen to twenty- 
two, that they will steal from parents, masters, su- 
periors or equals, or anywhere, so that they may 
gain admittance into this hot-bed of all iniquity. 
The records of our criminal courts well establish this 
fact. Colquhoun, who was many years at the head of 
the Police in London, and who published a history 
of that institution, remarks — " I believe that more 
of the youths among the lower orders in London be- 
gin their career as thieves, in order that they may 
have the means of gratifying their penchant for the- 
atricals, than for any other cause that could be 



70 REMINISCENCES OF 

named." Now don't you think that the youths in 
New- York are made exactly of the same material 
that the youths in London are made of — only our 
youths are better fed., and many of them are not so 
well taught as are the youths in London ] Besides, 
our youth being all born sovereigns, they are conse- 
quently crammed with an extra quantity of impu- 
dence and folly, making them fit subjects for every 
evil work. 

The theatre is the entering wedge to every other 
vice ; wherever they erect an opera or play-house, 
immediately there springs up, right under its wing, 
an oyster-house and a porter-house, a gambling and 
a prostitution-house. The frequenters of the first 
are generally the regular customers of all the other 
four. In the cares of a family for forty years in New- 
York, I have walked the streets at all hours of the 
night, for doctors, nurses, &c. I have often seen 
(just as the streaks of light began to climb the eastern 
sky) young men and boys entering the stores in 
Broadway, where they slept, and the keys of which 
they kept in their pockets. Between Reed and 
Liberty-streets I have counted from seven to twelve 
in a morning of these trusty servants so make entry. 
Little think their masters — who at the same hour 
may be playing cards in Leroy-Place with some 
worthy brother of the cloth — that their five-dollar 
bills are flying about in Church-street like chaff be- 
fore the wind ; and little think the farmers of Rhode 
and Long Island, when they send their sons to New- 



GRANT THORBURN. 71 

York to measure cloth and sell mousseline de laine, 
that they have pitched them into the mouth of the 
roarinfT Hon — that he is drao^sfinsr them alono^ the road 
to ruin, and down to the chambers of hlack despair. 
This custom of boys and young men sleeping in the 
store is a sore evil under the sun ; and intrusting 
them with the front door-key of the store is a sore 
temptation to steal from the till by day, that they 
may spend it in the houses aforesaid by night. Re- 
mem.ber — who murdered Ellen Jeioctt ! 

Beside, dramatic representations unfit the mind 
for the steady routine of business, and for all the sober 
realities of life. Let any one walk into the stores on 
Broadway or Pearl- street between the hours of three 
and four, while their employers are gone to their 
dinners, and the clerks will be seen standing in 
groups with pen stuck behind the ear, the bales, the 
bills, the day-book and ledgers all unstrung, while 
they are comparing notes about Celeste's dancings 
Wood/s singing, or FlynjCs playing, Sfc. Should an 
undertaker step in at this moment and ask for black 
kid gloves, so engaged are they in this all-important 
discussion, and so loath are they to be interrupted 
in their favorite and all-engrossing subject, that the 
poor grave-digger is frowned from the threshold 
with an abrupt and surly No ! although the abomi- 
nable rascals know that they have fifty dozen of 
that self-same article lying on the shelf at that very 
moment. Self-interest and common sense make them 
keep their eyes on their books and bills while their 



/2 REMINISCENCES OF 

employers are present, but even tlien the hand is 
often still and the eyes shut over the day-book, 
while the mind is running riot over the wild intoxica- 
ting scenes they have witnessed in the opera or 
play house the night previous ; in their sleep they 
talk and dream of nothing else, and at their desks 
they are still haunted by the same delusion. At one 
period of my life I was one of the liel2:)s in D. Dun- 
ham's large vendue concern in Pearl-street, and al- 
though he was the sharpest business man in the 
street, I often witnessed the above and similar blast- 
ing effects of dramatic representations, even among 
his clerks. Beside, it is an awful murder of time, 
to sit three nights in a week, from seven to eleven, 
learning nothing lltit what is worse than nothing: 
debasing and paralyzing the mind. 

If our city fathers, all over the continent, would 
close the theatres for only five years by way of ex- 
periment, they would find the candidates for the gal- 
lows, prison and penitentiaries, to diminish fifty-fold. 
I don't ask whether you believe in the Bible, in the 
devil or in hell, but you all profess to be promoters 
of the public good. Well then, if those who are guai - 
dians of the public weal would look on the thou- 
sands of boys and children of both sexes that beset 
the doors, obstruct the walks, and throng the streets 
in front of these temples of vanity, listen to their 
oaths and profane language, (God help the city when 
these boys are aldermen,) and say, if the causes of 
such gatherings are not a public nuisance. 



GRANT THORBURN. 73 

Twenty years ago there was no theatre in Roches- 
ter; they were then, a quiet, steady, sobersided fra- 
ternity of wheat flour grinders. There started from 
New-York a company of players ; they stopped at 
Albany to scratch up what they could catch ; (it was 
precious little;) they pushed through the canal with 
their kettle-drums and fiddlesticks, their bass-drums 
and clarionettes, their supernumeraries and door- 

' keepers ; females and bottle-holders, broom-sweep- 
ers and candle-snuffers — a motley group : they enter- 

, ed the town like Death on a pale horse, and all hell 

; followed after — and what is Rochester now 1 But to 
draw to a close, (as brother Miller said after a two 
hours' lecture on the propriety of burning the world 
last St. Patrick's day,) I would only remark, that for 
the three years just gone by theatricals are getting 

I every day in less repute. There is one reason for 
this, as I think, and for which we have to thank 
the Harpers, Winchesters, Benjamins and others, 

jviz. the cheapness of books. Young men are struck 

i when they see a book that formerly used to sell for 
three dollars, now advertised for 25 cents — the title 
attracts them, they can purchase as many for what 
they formerly paid for a play ticket, as will keep them 

I reading at night for a month ; thus the charm of the 
theatre is broken — the infatuation dispelled ; he has 
time to think ; he has chanced on Astronomy, the sub- 
limest of all earthly sciences ; the more he reads the 
more he admires the wisdom and power of God ; he 
now looks back with regret on the time and money 
7 



74 REMINISCENCES OF 

he has spent for nothing, and worse than nothing, 
and vanity ; he sees he has a part of his own to per- 
form among his fellows, and having buckled on his 
armor, is resolved to play his part like a man. 



Reminiscences of Thomas Faine. 



Of one, whose hand, 



" Like the base Judtsan, threw a pearl away, 
" Richer than all his tribe." 

I think it was in 1801, when Mr. Jefferson, being 
firmly established in the throne of his kingdom, des- 
patched a vessel of war to bring from France the in- 
comparable Thomas Paine, author of the Rights of 
Man, Common Sense, &c. Mr. Paine had just es- 
caped, as if by miracle, from the guillotine, wrought 
by the sturdy arms of the brethren of his own cloth, 
who thought, as appeared by their deeds, that a man 
never had got his full share of rights till once they 
had clipped the head from his shoulders. He came 
to New- York and put up at the City Hotel. Next 
day, about 9 a. m. a gentleman came into my store 
and reported that Mr. Paine was then standing oni 
the steps of the front door. With two gentlemen 
who happened to be in the store, we sallied out to 
have a look at him ; but just as we came in view he 
had returned inside. While I stood considering how 



GRANT THORBURN. 75 

to get a sight of him I saw Samuel Loudon, the 
printer, enter the hotel. This Samuel Loudon was 
a sober-sided old Scotchman, and a stanch Whig. 
When Lord Howe took possession of New- York 
Samuel fled with his types, black-balls and printing 
devils, and joined the army under Washington, 
When Washington wrote a proclamation, Samuel 
was sure to print it. Dr. Rogers — who was mary 
years minister in Wall-street — was there too, preach- 
ing about the sword of the Lord and of Washing- 
ton, till the fellows fought like the Highlanders at 
the battle of Waterloo. Dr. Rogers' son was there 
too : he was a doctor of physic ; and when the sol- 
diers got their legs broke in the storming of batteries, 
he coopered them up, and set them a marching again 
as soon as possible. All this I learned while con- 
versing with Mr. Loudon. But to return to Thomas 
Paine. As I knew that Mr. Loudon and he were co- 
patriots through the whole of the American revolu- 
tion, I presumed Mr. L. was going to see his old 
friend ; and if so, I could thus get an introduction to 
Mr. Paine. So in I went. A servant was sweeping 
the passage. *' Is Mr. Paine at home V said L 
"Yes." "In his room 1" "Yes." " Alone 1" " Yes." 
Here I was put out — if he was alone, I had no intro- 
duction. But I was determined now to see him. 
Come what will, thought I, he wrote the Rights of 
Man — he won't deny my right to look upon his au- 
gust person, and being alone I will introduce myself. 
" Can I see him V " Follow me," He ushered me 



7b REMINISCENCES OF 

into a spacious room, where the table was set for 
breakfast. A gentleman was at the table writing, 
another reading the newspaper, and at the farther end 
of the room stood along, lank, coarse-looking figure, 
warming his hind-quarters before the fire. From the 
resemblance the latter person bore to portraits I 
had seen in his book, I knew it was Paine. While I 
followed the waiter, I was preparing an exordium to 
introduce myself, a plain republican aZowe; but when 
I found a company, 1 was taken all aback. Now, 
thought I, I am in for it — get out as well as I can. 
Facing round to the table, said I, " Gentlemen, is 
Mr. Paine in this room V He stepped toward me, 
and answered, " My name is Paine." I held out my 
hand, and taking his, says I, "■ Mr. Paine, and you, 
gentlemen, will please excuse my abrupt entry ; I 
came from mere curiosity to see the man whose writ- 
ings have made so much noise in the world." Paine 
answered, ** I am very happy in being able to satisfy 
your curiosity." I made a bow, something, I expect, 
like a goose ducking his head under water. "Good 
morning, gentlemen," said I, walked out, and shut 
the door behind me. They all burst out into a loud 
laugh, the sound of which followed me to the front 
steps. Thought I to myself, they may laugh that win 
— I have seen Thomas Paine ; and, all things consi- 
dered, have made a pretty good retreat. They called 
the waiter. " Do you know that little gentleman V* 
" Oh, yes ; it's Thorburn, the seedsman." They hied 
away to a coffee-house, then at the corner of Wall 



GRANT THOREITRN. 77 

and Water-Streets ; they reported the matter, with 
additions and improvements ; and as the story tra- 
velled it grew larger with every version, till it became 
quite a farce at length. One said that I told Paine 
that he was a great muckle beast, and that it was for 
reading and lending his Rights of Man that I was 
compelled to leave my country, &c. &c. 

At that time I was clerk in the Scotch Presbyte- 
rian Church in Cedar-street. The kirk session took 
the alarm, an extra meeting was convened, and I was 
suspended from psalm-singing for three months, 
because I had shaken hands with Thomas Paine. 

A few years after this, when Mr. Paine had fallen 
into disrepute, and his company was shunned by the 
more respectable of his friends on account of his un- 
popular writings and hard drinking, he boarded in 
the house of William Carver, a blacksmith and horse- 
doctor. This Carver and I had been journeymen in 
the same shop ten years prior to this period ; so hav- 
ing free access to the house, I frequently called to 
converse with Mr. Paine. One evening he related 
the following anecdote. He said it was in the reign 
of Robespierre, when every republican that the mon- 
ster could get in his power was cut down by the 
knife of the guillotine, Paine was in the dungeon, 
and his name was on the list, with twenty-four others, 
ordered for execution next morning. It was custom- 
ary for the clerk of the tribunal to go through the 
cells at night, and put a cross with chalk on the back 
of the door of such as were to be guillotined. In the 
7* 



78 REMINISCENCES OF 

morning, when the executioner came with his guard, 
wherever they found a chalk the victim was brought 
forth. There was a long passage in the cellar of this 
Bastile, having a row of cells on each side containing 
the prisoners ; the passage was secured at each end, 
but the doors of the cells were left open through the 
day, and the prisoners stepped into one another's 
rooms to converse. Paine had gone into the next cell 
and left his own door open back to the wall, thus having 
the door inside out. Just then came the chalkers, and 
probably being drunk, crossed the inside of Paine's 
door. Next morning, when the guard came with an 
order to bring out twenty-four, and finding only 
twenty-three chalks, (Paine being in bed and the 
door shut,) they took a prisoner from the further end 
of the passage, and thus made up the number ; so Mr. 
Paine escaped. Before the mistake was discovered, 
or about forty-eight hours after, a stronger party than 
Robespierre's cut off his head and about thirty of his 
associates — so Paine was set at liberty ; and being 
afraid to trust his head among the good republicans 
for whom he had written so much, he made the best 
of his way to this country. 

I asked him what he thought of this miraculous es- 
cape*? He said : *' The Jcdes had ordained I was not 
to die at that time." Said I, " Mr. Paine, I will tell 
you what I think. You have written and spoken 
much against what we call the religion of the Bible ; 
you have highly extolled the perfectibility of human 
reason when left to its own guidance, unshackled by 



GRANT THORBURN. 79 

priestcraft and superstition ; the God of Providence 
(for neither Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, nor thyself can 
tell v^hdX fates mean) has spared your life, and sent 
you here, that you might give to the people of this 
country, where your writings were so very popular, 
a living comment on your own doctrines, and to show 
to all the world what human nature is when left by 
the Creator to wander in its own counsels. Here you 
sit, in an obscure, uncomfortable dwelling, bedaubed 
with snuff and stupified with brandy; — you, who 
were once the companion of Washington, Jay, and 
Hamilton, are now deserted by every good man, and 
even respectable Deists cross the streets to avoid 
you." He said : " I care not a straw for the opinions 
of the world." Said I : " I envy not your feelings.'* 
So we parted. In short, he was the most disgusting 
human being you could meet in the street. Through 
the effects of intemperance, his countenance was 
bloated beyond description — he looked as if the mark 
of Cain was stamped upon his face. A few of his dis- 
ciples, to hide him from the gaze of men, conveyed 
him to Greenwich, where they supplied him with 
brandy till he died. 

One evening I found him with ten or twelve of 
his disciples in company. As usual, he was abusing 
the Bible for being the cause of every thing that is 
bad in the world. When he stopped, I said : " Mr. 
Paine, you have been in Ireland and other Roman 
Catholic countries, where the priests forbid the use 
of the Bible to the people ; and if they have the Bible, 



80 KEMINISCENCES OF 

never having been learned, they can't read it — so, of 
course, the Bible can't spoil them." This was con- 
ceded, and I continued : *' You have been in Scot- 
land, w^hich is full of Bibles, and where every man, 
woman and child can and does read it." This he ac- 
knowledged. " Well," said I, *' if the Bible were a 
bad book, those who used it most would be the 
worst people ; but the contrary is the fact — for, 
while our jails, alms-houses, prisons and penitentia- 
ries are filled with ignorant foreigners who never saw 
the Bible, there is not a Scotchman this day in one of 
them. Where the Bible is not read, the peasantry 
live like, live with, and are but one step above the 
brutes that perish ; in Scotland the peasantry are 
intelligent, sober, industrious, and live in comfortable 
dwellings." At this moment, as I stopped, the clock 
struck ten — he lifted one of the two candles that 
stood on the table, and without a word in reply, or 
even a good night, walked up stairs to bed, leaving 
his friends and me to draw our own conclusions. 

Shortly after this a man was hung for murder. He 
walked with a steady step from the old Bridewell in 
the Park to a hill which stood on the west side of 
Broadway, near the corner of Leonard-street, where 
the gallows was erected, a clergyman on each side of 
him — all three singing a hymn. When arrived at the 
gallows he mounted the cart and stood on his coffin. 
Before he left the prison a rope of about two feet 
long, having a small iron hook attached to it, was put 
round his neck. From the gallows was suspended 



GRANT THOR^URN. 81 

i another rope, having a similar hook at the end of it. 

■ Being told that the hour was expiring, he prayed two 
minutes, then took hold of the hook which hung on 

j his back, gave it a catch on the hook suspended from 

i the crostree of the gallows, the cart drove from un- 
der him, and he died without a stru^^orle. 

Being in company with Mr. Paine that same even- 
ing, I asked him if he saw the man die. He did. 
*' What thought you of the scene V *' I thought the 
man behaved with much fortitude." Said I, ** Mr. 

j Paine, what you call the delusion of the Bible was 
this man's support in that trying hour." He said, 
"' An Indian v/ill sing his death-song while roasting 
at the stake, and die as bravely as that man did." 
"Because," said I, "he believes he is going to join 
his kindred in the hunting grounds, where deer are 
plenty, and the game never fails : and so with the 
Turk — at death he hopes to pass into elysian fields, 
where he may pick up a dozen handsome wives for 
nothing, and swallow flagons of wine for ever with- 
out getting drunk. But you have no hope — your 
chief ambition is to live like a dog, to die like a dog, 
and to find a dog's damnation, (viz. annihilation.) I 
would rather believe Vv^ith a Turk or an Indian than 
in your creed; but the christian's is a reasonable 
and rational hope— -he trusts in no less a power than 
in Him who made the worlds above ; who counts 
the number of the stars and calls them by their right 
names ; who counts the hairs on our heads, and who 
takes notice of the fall of a sparrow as much as he 



82 REMINISCENCES OF 

does of the crash of an empire. Thus trusting, he 
is supported through the troubles of life. When he 
breaks an arm, he is thar^ful it was not his leg ; if 
he breaks a leg, he thanks God it was not his neck : 
this keeps him in perfect peace. But you have no 
peace or comfort in this life, and no hope in death. 
Besides, the christian has the advantage of you 
both ways ; he has a support here, which you are 
ignorant of; he has a hope beyond the grave, which 
you laugh at. If your creed is true, he has nothing 
to lose ; but if his creed is true, you lose your own 
soul." 

He looked earnestly in my face for a few mo- 
ments. "Why, Grant," said he, "thee* had better 
throw away thy hammer and turn preacher: thee 
v.'ould make a good Methodist parson," 



Clieap Times. 

" Hiph-dreaniing bards have told 
*' Of timea when worth was crown'd aud faith was kept, 
" Ere Friendship grew a snare or Love wax'd cold— 
" Those pure and happy times — the golden days of old." 

December 2, 1843. 
Of late much has been read, said and suno^ about 
cheap printing and its moral tendency ; but, before we 

• In his youth he lived among the Friends: his father be 
longed to the Society. 



GRANT THORBURN. 83 

analyze tlie subject, (as Dr. Chilton says, when he is 
hunting in an empty stomach in search of ratsbane,) 
we must first make a preface, as Dickens made his 
*' Notes." I have hardly ever seen anything so ridi- 
culous as a book without a preface, except when we 
saw Dickens in the theatre, surrounded by lasses of 
sixteen and matrons of sixty — their gray locks shorn 
close to the skull, and their hoary scalps covered 
with a black matting of maidens' hair — with needle- 
book and bodkin in one hand, and a pair of scissors 
in the other : all squeezing round to cut off a pinch 
of his gray English hair. 

So much for princesses in a country where all are 
sovereigns. But this is a digression, and you may 
look for more of them ; as I v/rite for nothing and 
find myself, I am not bound to stick to one point. 
However, we will return to the cheap books. Every- 
thing is cheap in this country : we have flour at $3 
per barrel in Michigan ; potatoes at 75 cents per 
barrel at Buffalo ; beef at 3 cents and pork at 2h 
cents per pound at Cincinnati ; we have cheap to- 
bacco in Richmond, sweet potatoes in Carolina, 
cheap onions in Wethersfield, and cheap board in 
Albany. You may buy an oath in the Subterranean 
Court, or at some of the polls, for a dollar, and get 
shaved in Wall-street for two per cent, a month. In- 
deed, everything is cheap in this country, demo- 
cracy only excepted ; and what with time and money 
spent at ward meetings, club meetings, Park and 
Tammany meetings, handbills and advertising, polls, 



S4f REMINISCENCES OF 



elections, &c. ; and then when seated in office, they i 
become defaulters in the Custom-house, the Banking- ] 
house, the Post-office, the War-office, and in every i 
office and place of trust — I verily believe it costs 
more to keep us in order than it takes to pay Queen i 
Victoria, with her lords of the Stall and her ladies 
of the Chamber, her horses, hounds, &c. ; and were 
it not for temperance societies and clieay hooks, I think 
we would soon be a ruined nation. 

Cheap books have sprung up as- a strong auxiliary 
to temperance societies. I have thought from the 
beginning, and I think so still, that I can see the 
hand of Providence in this mighty revolution in litera- 
ture, as a powerful engine in aid of the temperance 
cause. I have been told by day-laborers and me- 
chanics, that when they first took the Pledge their 
greatest difficulty was how to kill time at night: 
they had been in the habit, after supper, of adjourn- 
ing to some tavern, to read the newspaper, drink 
two pints of beer, smoke two Spanish segars, and 
sometimes staying till 12 o'clock at night. Thus 
they spent $131 per week, (for some of them put 
the Sabbath evenings in their catalogues,) making 
$68 12^ per annum, — more than it cost me to keep i 
my wife when I was first married forty-six years 
ago. But wives in those days, to be sure, were true 
yoke-fellows : they drew equal. Now, scores of them 
are worse than good for nothing ; they are like an 
old fifty-six chained to a man's leg — dragging him 
back while he is pulling ahead — jingling a piano, 



GRAWT THOREUKN. 85 

instead of making his shirts — shopping in Broadway, 
in place of mending his stockings — leaving cards in 
'Bond-street, Ann-street, Park-place and Swamp- 
place, when they ought to be in the kitchen to see 
how the cook got the apple inside of the dumpling. 
But I have forgotten the cheap books again. Well, 
to return to our mechanics. Now, when they come 
home at night, having finished supper, they find on 
the mantei-piece a newspaper for a cent, and a his- 
tory of the stout barons in England, who compelled 
King John to sign the Magna Charta, for twenty- 
five cents, (this book cost thirty shillings sterling in 
London.) Indeed, they can buy as many books for 
ten shillings and sixpence, only one iveek's heer score^ 
as will keep them reading for a tv/elvemonth ; be- 
sides, the beer was poison to the body, while the 
books are food for the mind. Formerly, they rose in 
the morning with a sore head and a sick heart, their 
ideas all '* confusion worse confounded;" now they 
rise with the lark,"^ having a clear head and a quiet 
conscience. They enter on the labors of the day 
like the sun going forth in his strength; and while 
their hands are employed in the hewing of wood and 
drawing of water, their thoughts are fighting over 
again the battles of Wellington, which they read the 
night previous in Alison's History of Europe, thus be- 
guiling the hours of labor and making time seem 
short. Besides, many young men who formerly 

* An European bird, an early songster. 
8 



S6 REMmiSCENCES OF 

spent their nights in that church of thed evil and 
road to hell — the theatre — now stay at home and 
read cheap books. 

N. B. I must add now, by way of postscript, friend 
Park, (and you must print every line of this rhap- 
sody, else don't print any,) that it has been said 
that some of your books are rather of a black concern. 
It may be so, for I have not read the " Mysteries of 
Paris," and can't tell : and, if it is, you are no worse 
than your neighbors ; but as two blacks won't make 
a white, I advise you to mend your manners — you 
are not too old to learn. But, is it not enough to make 
the devil blush to hear men blame the Messrs. Har- 
pers and yourself for only printing the theory, while 
they themselves send or carry their sons and daugh- 
ters to Paris, where they may learn the same things in 
practice 1 And is it not strange to see these guardians 
of the public weal carry their sons, daughters and 
wives to the play-house, where they may see groups 
of French and Italian nymphs, dancing in frocks of the 
same longitude that they wore when only ten years 
old 1 There are some lordly democrats who send 
their daughters to Baltimore to finish their education 
in a nunnery : and a pretty sort of a finish they make 
of it; better they had sent them to the female aca 
demy at Hackensack, where they might learn some 
common sense among the Dutch lasses — an article 
they can never acquire in a nunnery. 



\ 



GRANT THORBURN. 87 



Tlie Horse and liis Rider. 

" Up hill, indulge him— down the deep descent, 
"Spare — and don't urge him when his strength is spent; 
" Impel him briskly o'er the level earth, 
" But in his stable don't forgot his worth." 

Many who keep horses are not aware that they are 
thinking animals, and have feelings, passions and 
affections very much like human beings, although 
they cannot talk. People who do not appreciate the 
character of the horse, are apt to treat him without 
love or mercy, and without any appeal to his natural 
inteUigence. " The horse knoweth his owner," and 
much more : he knows when he is used as a horse 
should be ; and in respect to treatment, the Turk 
and Arab have much the advantage of many christians 
I could name. The Pagans make friends of their 
horses ; they love each other, and on the sandy desert 
or the wild plain they lie down side by side, and 
each is equally ready to resist the approach of. an 
enemy. 

A horse may be taught like a child by those who 
have won his affections ; but the method of teaching 
is by showing distinctly what you wish him to do, 
not by beating him because he does not understand 
and perform at the outset all you desire. Horses, 
like men, have very different intellectual capacities 
and tempers j but all may be mastered by kindness, 
while the best, the most high-spirited and the most 
generous will be ruined by harsh treatment. 



88 REMINISCENCES OF 

At the circus you have ocular demonstration that 
the horse understands the language of man, and man 
may learn more virtues than one if he will observe 
the habits of his horse. *' Ask the beast, he will 
teach thee !" 

To illustrate the position that a horse, by kindness, 
may become as docile and as fond of his master as a 
dog, I will tell something of my horse Billy. I was 
out with him before a light wagon ; on a part of the 
way a fence was being made with lime, and the road 
was encumbered with large stones, lime, lime barrels, 
carts, ox-chains, &c. which rendered it almost im- 
passable, even by daylight. I was detained beyond 
my expectations, and by the time I arrived at this 
dangerous spot, on my return, it was so dark I could 
not distinguish the head of my horse. I thought of 
getting out to lead him ; but this was impossible, as 
the frost was coming out of the ground, and had I 
left the wagon I should have sunk to the knees in 
mire. When we came to this spot Billy stopped of 
his own accord. " Now, Billy," said I, ** I can't see, 
and can't walk ; you must try and not upset me." 
So saying, I slacked the reins, and gave him his own 
way. It was a ticklish job, but he managed it nobly ; 
he stopped now and then and made a survey, as 
carefully as did the men who ran the boundary line 
two years ago ; he turned, and tacked, and wore 
ship like an old seaman among breakers, and brought 
me out as safe as a steamer beyond the overslaugh. 
*' Well done, Billy," said I. " You shall have a good 



GRANT THORBURN. 89 

bed and four quarts of oats as soon as we get home." 
While I kept talking, he walked at a slow pace, as if 
listening. ** Now, Billy," said I, ** ye may gang yer 
ain gait.'' He clapped his feet to the ground — he is 
a racker — and in ten minutes we were at home. As 
I was taking off his harness, I kept patting and 
praising him occasionally, and then made a comfort- 
able bed and gave him his oats, for which he seemed 
moi'e grateful than some of those hva legged gentry 
who scour the Third Avenue, for they neither thank 
God nor man. 

Billy is a white Canadian pony. I have fed him for 
ten years past with my own hands, and generally ca- 
ress and talk to him while feeding, so that now he 
seems to understand every word I say as well as if 
he had been born in Scotland. 

I knew a gentleman who bought a number of 
cavalry horses at public sale shortly after the battle 
of Waterloo; he turned them loose in a park near 
London. After being in the park a few weeks, there 
came up a thunder-storm ; at the time the horses 
were busily engaged eating the grass ; with the first 
flash of lightning the horses raised their heads, pricked 
up their ears, and stood in the act of listening j in a 
moment the sound of the thunder came rolling from 
afar, when every horse galloped, each faster than his 
neighbor, to the centre of the field, where they fell 
into line as regularly as if backed by the most ex- 
perienced life-guards. In a few minutes, finding it a 
false alarm, they quietly returned to their grass. 
8* 



90 REMINISCENCES OF 

Where is the man, having a soul, tliat can abuse such 
an animal '? 

t knew a gentleman who occasionally got intoxi- 
cated, whose horse knew when his master was drunk 
as well as he did himself, by his vacillating motions 
when mounted. Upon such occasions the horse would 
regulate his movements so as to prevent his master 
from falling, if possible. One moonlight evening ho 
staoforered out of Cato's, or some of the hell-holes 

GO ' 

near the Third Avenue, and was helped on tho 
saddle ; but he fell off before he had gone a mile, 
and his foot hung in the stirrup. His horse stopped 
and stood still. Here was a theme for a picture — a 
comment upon the text : ** Ask the beast, he will teach 
thee." There stood the compassionate horse, the 
big tear rolling in his eye, looking with sorrow upon 
his drunken master, and revolving in his mind how 
best he should help him. At length he griped the 
brim of his hat with his teeth, but this gave way, 
and again the drunkard's head smote the ground. 
He then seized hold of the collar of his coat, and thus 
held him up till he was able to extricate his foot from 
the stirrup. His master having now become some- 
what sobered by the loss of blood and his fright, 
was able to mount again and keep his saddle, and 
arrived home safe. Soon after this the man joined 
the Temperance Society, and is now a useful and 
happy man. It is now more than ten years since 
this occurred, but the horse is still kept and treated 
like one of the family, and will be till he dies. 



GRANT TIIOrtEURN. 91 

I have seen a horse at an exhibition, which, upon a 
watch being held before him, and he asked what 
time it was — happening to be four o'clock — struck 
the floor four times with his foot. 

A friend of mine in Brooklyn has a horse Avhich, 
when asked by his master to salute the company, will 
place himself against the wall, and standing upon his 
liind feet, nod with his head to the company. 

A friend of mine had a valuable horse stolen from 
his stable, for which a large reward was offered and 
diligent search made, but to no purpose. Having 
changed masters several times, he was at length rode 
by a gentleman v/hose business led him through the 
place from which the horse had been stolen, and 
when he came opposite his old master's house he 
marched directly up and put his head over the half- 
door, and commenced neighing. His rider kicked, 
spurred, coaxed and whipped, but to no purpose ; to 
move him was impossible. A crowd gathered around 
him, and among these was his old master. They re- 
cognized each other immediately, the master by 
naming his horse, and the horse by laying his head 
on his master's shoulder. The rider gave a fair 
account of his purchase, and so did the next and the 
next, until it came to the thief, who was committed 
for trial. 

Some years ago a favorite old hunter belonging to 
a gentleman in Somersetshire, England, being locked 
in the stable, and hearing the sound of a French, 
horn and the cry of the hounds, became very restive. 



92 KEMTNISCENCES OF 

The hostler going into the etable thought the spirited 
animal wanted some sport, and instantly saddled him, 
and placing a large monkey upon the saddle, turned 
him loose. The horse following the sound soon 
joined the pack, and was one of the first in at the 
death of poor Reynard. But the amazement of the 
sporting gentlemen was greatly heightened hy ob- 
serving the monkey holding the reins with all the 
dexterity of a true sportsman. 

A gentleman who owned a great many horses was 
in the habit of turning them loose in a field to graze, 
in the summer. Among them was a horse stone 
])lind. One of the horses attached himself to this 
blind horse, and whenever the blind one strayed from 
his companions, this good-tempered creature followed 
him, and by laying his head on his neck, and other 
signs which they perfectly understood, would lead 
him back to his companions. And what is still more 
remarkable, this horse was so gentle and peaceable 
that he incurred the character of being a coward 
when only himself was concerned ; but if any of them 
made an attack upon his blind friend he would fly 
with such fury that not a horse in the field could 
stand before him. I thought the conduct of this horse 
might put man to the blush. 

One of the horses belonging to the Oxford dra- 
goons having got loose in the stable, marched up a 
crooked staircase into the hay -loft. When his rider 
came into the stable he was thunder-struck on mis- 
sing his horse, and flew like a madman to inform an 



GRANT THORBURN. 93 

officer of his loss ; but he had scarcely got twenty 
yards when the animal put his head through the 
pitching-hole and neighed aloud. The astonishment 
of the soldier and his neighbors was beyond de- 
scription. Every stratagem that could be devised 
was made use of to lead or force him down, but in 
vain ; he saw the danger and was obstinate. He kept 
trotting and snorting round the large hay-loft for 
nearly two hours, until at last he stepped upon a 
trap-door, made of thin boards, which let him down 
upon the floor, about eight feet, without the slight- 
est injury. 

A few years since, the servant of Mr. "Walker led 
his horses to the corner of New and Broad-streets 
to drink, and was always followed by a fine Scotch 
terrier dog, which had fondly attached himself to 
one of the horses, and always slept under the manger, 
by the fore-feet of his favorite. On going to drink 
one morning, the terrier was attacked by a powerful 
masti/T, (the prototype of Bonaparte, the great bull- 
dog of murderers,) and was in a fair way of being 
torn in pieces. The favorite horse seeing the unequal 
contest, slipped his halter, galloped to the spot, and 
with his hind feet gave the tyrant a blow so well 
directed and powerful as to send him, head over 
heels, across the street and down the steps of a 
cellar. Having performed this act of justice, he re- 
turned to the well, finished his drinking, and then 
escorted his canine friend to his soft bed under the 



94 . REMINISCENCES OF 

Sir Walter Raleigh makes mention of a horse 
which lived in his time, belonging to a Mr. Banks, 
of whom it is related that he would restore a glove 
to its owner after his master had whispered the man's 
name in his ear. When shown a piece of money, 
and asked how many pence it contained — suppose it 
to be a shilling — he would strike the ground twelve 
times with his foot. This renowned horse is alluded 
to by Shakspeare, in ** Love's Labor's Lost," Act 1, 
Scene 3. 

The following sublime description of the horse is 
from the book of Job, chapter 30, v. 19. God, speak- 
ing to Job, says : " Hast thou given the horse 
strength 1 Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder 1 
canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper! The 
glory of his nostrils is terrible ; he paweth the valley, 
and rejoiceth in his strength ; he goeth on to meet 
the armed men, he mocketh at fear, and is not af- 
frighted ; neither turneth he back from the sword. 
The quiver resteth against him, the "glittering spear 
and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with 
fierceness and rage ; neither believeth he that it is 
the sound of the trumpet; he saith among the 
trumpets, ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, 
the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." 

This eloquent description of the horse was written 
about 5,000 years ago ; yet no language could better 
portray his nature, though it were written on the 
day after the battle of Waterloo, where the British 
horse contributed so much to gain that splen 



GRANT THORBURN. 95 

did victory over Bonaparte and his Invincibles. 

I might fill a volume with such anecdotes ; but as 
I intend to continue the subject, I will conclude with 
a few hints on their treatment, which I have learned 
from experience. 

When a horse shays, don't beat him — that only- 
makes him worse next time ; check him to a walk, 
and give him time to see the object, and he will take 
little or no notice of it. 

If a horse stumbles, don't strike him for it — that 
will add the fault of springing forward ; for the next 
time he stumbles he will expect the lash to follow, 
ind will naturally spring forward to be out of its 
way. The remedy is in keeping a good look-out ; 
and when you come to a rough or stony part of the 
road, tighten the reins and enliven the horse by 
talking to him ; but never strike him after an acci- 
lent. 

As you would save the strength and wind of your 
iiorse, drive slow up a hill ; and as you would save 
your own and your horse's limbs, drive slow down 
a hill. Do not feed with grain, especially corn, 
when your horse is warm or much fatigued ; if you 
do you may founder and ruin him. 

Never wash your horse with cold water when lie 
is hot, or let him drink freely ; but if the water is 
quite warm it will not hurt him. 



96 REMINISCENCES OF 



'I'lie Genesee Girl and Iier liillc lied Book.. 

A STORY, NOT FOUNDED ON, BUT ALL FACT. 

" (jood she was, and fair in youth, 
"And her mind was seen to soar, 
''And her heart was wed to truth." 

One tremendously cold morning in the month of 
February, one thousand eight hundred and twenty- 
three, or so — a month or a year, more or less, makes 
no difference, as the story is certain, and the inter- 
pretation thereof true — we left Hoboken, fifteen of 
us, stowed close and well-packed, in a large stage 
with wheels, besides a very neat coach which held 
only four ; I was very politely asked to step into this 
coach, and, so foolish was I and ignorant, that 1 
thought this same fine close carriage would carry me 
all the way, through thick and through thin, whither 
I was bound, even to the State House in Albany. In 
two short hours my eyes were opened ; we stopped 
at Hackensack, at a tavern, grocery, grog-shop and 
post-office, all under one concern; (by-the-bye, those 
mail-bags are a great grievance, stopping every few 
miles on the road in a cold night.) Here w^e were 
to change horses. Our grog-selling postmaster began 
to bluster and swear. He had neither carriage co- 
vered nor uncovered, in which to forward so many 
passengers. He said the Jockey Cluh in New- York 
took all the money, and gave him all the trouble. '^ In 
short," said he, '^ except you remain here till 4 p. m. 



GRANT THOKBUKN, 97 

|fiOu must go on with such conveyance as I can fur- 
nish." Here one of our passengers, a great black- 
whiskered fellow, told the landlord to his face, '^ He 
would rather stay in h — till 4 o'clock than stop in 
such an abominable rum-hole." As we applied to 
our Hoboken driver, he said his orders were to drop 
us at Hackensack, and bring back the carriages ; and, 
sure enough, he turned about, and back he went. 
j Looking at our commodious carriages on their re- 
turn, a passenger remarked, *' These are kept as 
decoy-ducks ;'''' I thought, in our case, they had de- 
coyed geese, for no person with brains ought to ex- 
pect any good thing to come out of Jersey. Here we 
were detained nearly an hour; I stepped into the 
bar-room — a large place ; in the centre stood an old- 
fashioned ten-plate stove, surrounded by fifteen or 
twenty large, lazy-looking fellows ; on the stove 
(which was very hot) stood a number of pots, pitch- 
ers, mugs and jars of beer, brandy, ale and cider; 
some, running over with the heat, made a hissing 
noise, and the fumes which rose to the ceiling and 
intermixed with clouds of pipe and segar-smoke, re- 
bounded again on the heads of the smokers, nearly 
shutting out the light of day, and bringing to mind 
the midnight revels of Macbeth's witches dancing 
around the infernal fire, and Satan standing on the 
edge ofthe cauldron, stirring the ingredients of their 
incantations. Oh, how I wished for the powers, pen- 
cil and canvass of Hogarth ! I would have daubed 
those fellows into lasting shame. 



98 REMINISCENCES OF 

We were now sent forward in the following order, 
viz. two in an open chair, or sulkey, four in a light 
wagon, and eight in a common Jersey farming wagon, 
all the machines being without covers. It now com- 
menced raining; and, by the time we got to the next 
stage we looked like moving pillars of salt, our hats, 
cloaks and coats being covered to the thickness of 
one-eighth of an inch with ice transparent. At the 

town of we changed the mail, dried our clothes, 

and o^ot somethino^ to warm us. As we went north 
the sleighing got better, and we were placed in a 
covered box with runners ; but, alas ! it was like the 
man's lantern without a candle — the cover was of 
white-wood boards, placed a quarter of an inch 
apart, w^ithout faint ^ leather, or canvass ot protect it 
from the weather ! You will here observe, that se- 
venty-five cents' worth of canvass, twenty-five cents' 
worth of paint, and half an hoar of time, would have 
made this machine both air and water-tight; but in 
Jersey, time, cents, and every comfort, seemed all 
swallowed up with the rum-jugs and the ten-plate 
stoves. We travelled all night, the rain and snovy 
descending through the roof; our hats were frozen to 
our capes, and our cloaks to one another. When we 
stopped at the village of for breakfast, we look- 
ed like mountains of ice moving down the gulf- 
stream. I thought the machine used at the Dry Dock 
would have been an excellent appendage here, to 
have lifted us bodily into the breakfast-room, and 
this is what the horse-flesh fraternity in New- York 



GRANT THORBURN. 99 

advertised as their safe, cheap, comfortahle and ex- 
peditious winter establishment for Albany ! On the 
road I saw delicate women hewing wood and draw- 
inof water : children in the snow, without shoes or 
stockings ; while the lazy, drunken husband and fa- 
ther was spending his time and money by the ten- 
plate stove. I thought the very brute creation of Jer- 
sey were groaning in pain under the wickedness of 
the men ; horses and cows stood trembling by the 
board-fence, their bones sticking through their hide- 
bound skins, without the shghtest covering to pro- 
tect them from the piercing winds. Cedar poles and 
brush were there in abundance ; but the men were 
chained to the ten-plate stoves when they ought to 
have been raising a place of shelter for their dumb 
beasts. 

Among our passengers was a young woman, who, 
from her appearance, I thought must be about seven- 
teen. Having finished her education in New- York, 
she was returning to her friends in the West, and 
was under the protection of a young man, who, from 
his polite, yet cool attentions, I thought must be nearer 
related to her than cousin. Had she been a witness at 
the Hall, the papers would have said that she was 
a very interesting young lady; but, as I do not quite 
understand the phrase in this connection, it is as well 
to say at once, that she was a handsome young wo- 
man. Most of this day's journey there sat on her 
right hand a respectable farmer from Ohio — a man 
of sound principles, and who, by his observations, 



100 EEMINISCENCES OF 

must have seen much of men and their manners. On 
her left sat a young man about twenty-two, in the 
viffor of life and health, whiskered to the mouth and 
eyes, (observe, this was not her protector.) Our far- 
mer, in answer to a question by a passenger, when 
speaking of the inhabitants of the new settlements, 
observed that wherever there was a church and a 
stated minister, the people, for five or six miles 
around, were more orderly, circumspect, and sober, 
than were those who did not enjoy this privilege. 
This remark drew forth the tongue, the learning and 
the eloquence of our young hero of the whiskers. 
He had been to college, and was studying law in 
New-York ; he spoke long and loud about priestcraft 
and witchcraft ; said the laws of Lycurgus were bet- 
ter than the laws of Moses, and the Bible of Mahomet 
was better than the Acts of the Apostles. He said 
the stories about hell and the devil were only in- 
vented to scare the ignorant, and that death, at the 
worst, was only a leaiJ in the dark ; but, ah ! this leap 
in the dark ! we little thought we were so near the 
precipice, and that, in a few minutes, our courage 
would be put to the test. It had rained for the last 
twelve hours ; the sleighing got bad, and the driver 
swore he would take to the river. We thought he 
was in jest; but, finding him turn in that direction, 
the passengers, one and all, remonstrated, but to no 
effect. At every stopping-place, while the horses 
drank water he drank rum. He was now at that 
point of high j^ressure that he declared he feared 
neither death nor the devil. 



GRANT THORBURN. 101 

This scene took place between Newburgb and 
Catskill. We knew the ice was strong enough to 
bear a hundred sleighs, but the rain was running 
from the frozen hills on each side of the river, and 
the ice was now covered to the depth of at least two 
feet with water ; the wind was fresh, and the waves 
rolled as if no ice w^as under. Our apprehensions 
arose from the danger of getting into air-holes, which 
could not be seen, as all appeared but one sheet of 
water. At this juncture snow began to fall in broad 
flakes, so thick and so fast that the driver could 
scarcely see the heads of his leaders; and, to add to 
our fears, the banks were so steep that we could not 
effect a landing for nearly a mile ahead. I looked at 
our farmer; I thought he must, in his travels, have 
encoufttered many dangers by field and by flood ; his 
eye was uneasy, startled, and twinkling with some- 
thinor iHve fear. I asked him what he thoucfht ; he 
thought it was very unsafe, and very imprudent. I 
looked at the young woman ; she was pale, thought- 
ful and serious, but spoke not. On her lap she car- 
ried a small willow basket, the lids opening to the 
handle. While I was watching the effects of fear on 
her countenance, she took from her basket a little 
red hook, about two and a half inches long, two broad, 
and one thick ; she opened the book, turned a few 
leaves, fixed her eyes, and read about a minute. As 
she shut and replaced the book in the basket, she 
turned her face toward the heavens ; she closed her 

eyes, and her lips moved. Now, reader, if you ever 
9% 



102 REMINISCENCES OF 

Stood at Werckmeister's window, corner of Broad- 
way and Liberty-street, you may have seen a paint- 
ing of a beautiful Italian nun at her devotions. Well, 
if you have seen this, you may figure to yourself the 
countenance of this young woman in that trying mo- 
ment. As she opened her fine black eyes, the hue of 
fear, which for a moment had blanched her rosy 
cheeks, passed away like the shadow of a showery 
cloud on the side of a green hill, on an April morn- 
ing. I knew not the book, nor what words she had 
read; but I was sure it must have been somethino; 
that she took for insj^iration, and that was enough 
for the present case. I thought how cruel would it 
have been in one of those hoary-headed philanthro- 
pists of the temple of reason to undeceive this young 
woman at this critical moment, could such ci tJuT/g 
Jiave heen possible. During the remainder of our peril- 
ous ride she sat composed, but spoke not. I looked 
at the whiskered young man : he trembled in every 
limb ; ten minutes before he looked stout enough 
and fierce enough to have made the passage of Lodi, 
on the right hand of Bonaparte; but now he sat in 
dismay. This leap in the dark took him by surprise ; 
he was like one without hope, while she placed her 
tender foot firmly on the Rock of Ages ; witli her 
hand she took a grasp upon the skies, then bid the 
waves roll, nor feared their idle whirl. At this mo- 
ment I saw before me what I thought w^as Hope, 
and No Hope, personified — Hope, in the person of 
this young female, who could not so much as set her 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 103 

foot upon the ground, for very delicacy, yet slie nei- 
ther screamed nor wrung her hands : she neither 
I called for smelling-bottle nor hartshorn, but sat strong 
I in the faith of her little red hook ; and No Hope, in 
' the person of this young man, who, from strength of 
body and vigor of mind might have passed for one 
of the very lords of the creation ; but now he sat un- ' 
strung and feeble as a child. They had taken from 
him his reel book, and given him a blank book in its 
place ; he had no hope. At this juncture a passenger 
crept out of the sleigh and sat by the driver. What 
unanswerable argument he made use of I know not, 
but I suspect it was in the shape of a safety -fund 
note, for in five minutes the driver and his horses 
returned to the earth from whence they had late- 
ly sprung. 

We stopped at the village of Catskill to dine. 
While they were placing the victuals on the table I 
asked Miss Campbell if she would be so good as to 
let me look at the little red book she carried in the 
basket; its title was, " Daily Food for Christians,''^ 
being a portion of Scripture, and a hymn for every 
day in the year. I asked what portion seemed to 
please her so much while we were sleighing in the 
water % She said it was the text for the day — the 
words, " As the mountains are round about Jerusa- 
lem, so the Lord is round about his people," &c. — 
the hymn, '' Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,'* 
&c. As I returned the book, said I, " Miss, there be 
many who say this book is all delusion." 



104 , REMINISCENCES OP 

'^ And what if it is 1 It is, at least, a cJieap, a C0777- 

fortahle, and a very innocent delusion!" says she. 

" They may call it what they please, but I intend to 

make it my companion through all my journeys in 

life." 

We arrived at Albany the next day. Miss Camp- 
bell, her protector and I, stopped that night at the 
same hotel. I then learned that she was the adopted 
daughter of the Hon. William Campbell, Surveyor- 
General to the State, a man of great wealth. She 
was married in April, 1835, to Dr. Grant, of Utica, 
N. Y. ; a few weeks thereafter they sailed from Bos- 
ton for Constantinople, as missionaries to the Nesto- 
rians in Persia ; and there she died, I think, about 
two years as^o. 



Yellow Fever, from 1735 to IS 533. 

" I have seen 
" In my nisrht's course through the beleaguer'd city 
"Things whose remembrance doth not pass away 
" As vapors from the mountains." 

26th July. — The alarm of fever was heard through 
the city like the rumbling of distant thunder. 

14th August. — At 5 o'clock this morning it com- 
menced raining, not in large drops, like a thunder 
shower ; but, as it were in floating sheets of trans- 
parent water. At 7 I stood in the shop of a black- 
smith ; the rain poured down the chimney in such 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 105 

quantities as completely extinguished his fire in the 
short period that the bellows stood still while he was 
forging a horse-nail. He was obliged to quit work. 
In Maiden-lane, from Gold to Pearl-streets, the water 
was three feet deep. All the cellars from William- 
street to the East-river were filled with water. 
About 10 the rain ceased, but the sun showed not 
his face for several days — the air was hot, close and 
moist, as if you had been walking in a Scotch-mist, 
or stewed in a vapor-bath. 

15th. — Fourteen cases were this day rejDorted to 
have died of the fever. 

25th. — This day the report of fever was from every 
quarter, like a besieged city set on fire with shells 
and red-hot shot. 

26th. — Every vehicle, from the humble dung-cart 
to the gilded carriage, was now in requisition, re- 
moving families, furniture and goods ; the old man 
of eighty with the stripling of one year, the lame, 
the halt and the blind, all crowding the boats, the 
lanes and out-lets from the city ; fear quickened their 
pace, and the destroying angel at their heels. Hun- 
dreds of them died in the towns and villages around; 
but not one instance occurred of any inhabitant of 
Albany, Bergen or Brooklyn ever being seized by 
this, as it was called, infectious disease. About this 
time many instances like the following came under 
my notice : a respectable shoemaker, living at the 
corner of Pine and Front-streets, removed with his 
wife and younger children. His son, about twenty- 



106 EEMINISCENCES OF 

one, a confidential townsman and an old colored wo- 
man requested permission to stay, as they said they 
were not afraid of the fever. In a few days all three 
were taken sick. The journeyman was my towns- 
man — I was intimate in the families. I procured a 
doctor and nurse, and gave what attention I could. 
On the 5th day the son died ; early next morning I 
found the house locked up and the key gone ; I made 
an entry through a lower window; the nurse had 
fled, and took some of the small moveables by way 
of compensation. The black woman had rolled from 
her bed in the agonies of death, and was lying on 
the floor ; being unable to lift her, I put a pillow 
under her head, covered her body with a sheet, and 
entered the next room where my friend lay, his eyes 
closing fast in the sleep of death : in two hours the 
woman died ; I procured a hearse, and watched by 
my friend till 8 p. m., when he also died. At the same 
time a young man of my acquaintance lay at No. — 
Liberty street, in the same situation ; I nursed him — 
he recovered. Corner of Dover and Water-streets 
lay three brothers ; I procured a doctor, a nurse I 
could not find. When the doctor entered and saw 
one laid on a mattress on the floor, one on a cot in 
the same room, and one on a bed in another room, 
he seemed struck with fear ; he asked if there was ; 
any fire in the house 1 I procured some, he lit a se- 
gar and smoked most profusely — he proposed bleed- 
ing ; I took the basin, but for some minutes his ; 
hand trembled so that he could not strike the vein. ^ 



« GRANT THORBURN. 107 

When finished 1 went with him to the door ; said he, 
You run a great risk, — said I, There is no retreating. 
This was Monday the 17th September, — he called 
next day, Wednesday and Thursday he did not 
appear. I called at his house on Friday, about 10 
o'clock, A. M. and was informed that his corpse was 
now on the road to Potter's-field. Next morning, the 
22d September, the elder brother died, aged 22; 
the younger ones recovered. The Doctor's name 

was B s, and kept his office in Cherry-street. — 

Returning at 11 o'clock p.m. from visiting my pa- 
tients, the night was dark, a thick wetting mist was 
falling, the lamps twinkled just enough to show 
darkness visible. Descending the hill from the cor- 
ner of Dover-street in Pearl, I met two hearses with 
the dead, one was issuing out of Peck-slip the other 
coming out from Ferry-street. They turned up 
Pearl towards Chatham-street, on their way to Pot- 
ter's-field. Each hearse had a driver and an assist- 
ant, with a lantern between their feet sitting in 
front. Being heavily laden they drove slowly up the 
hill, the wheels and springs creaked and groaned 
under the weight of dead mortality. The drivers 
sat dumb as mutes, the pale light of their lanterns 
flickered across their stupid, unmeaning countenan- 
ces ; which looked as white as did the face of 
Samuel just peering out of the grave, when called 
by the witch of Endor from the mansions of the 
dead. I thought what a line subject this for such a 
pencil as West's, to make a second edition of Death 
on the Pale Horse. 



108 REMmiSCEWCES OF 

Sabbath, 15th September. — All the churches down 
town, known by the name of Orthodox and Reformed, 
being shut up, the poor who could not fly were very 
glad to pick what little crumbs of Gos]3el comfort 
they could find in the good old church of the Tri- 
nity, which was open every Sabbath. As the bell 

was tolling for afternoon service, Mr. T and his 

wife, and myself and v/ife, (we had all been married 
within the year,) were walking among the tombs ; 

as we turned the east corner Mrs. T , who was 

a lively girl, turned her husband round and exclaim- 
ed, (in a sort of playful manner,) " T , if I die 

of the fever you must bury me there," (pointing tol 
the spot.) Next day she was reported, and on Fri- 
day, the 21st, he buried her there ! and where you 
may see her grave-stone until this day. I was told 
the other day, that it is in contemplation to run 
Pine-street through the church-yard to Greenwich- 
street ; if so, the grave, the story and the stone will 
be lost in eternal oblivion, except some good-na- 
tured printer gives it a place. Very many fell a sa- 
crifice to the fever for want of proper attendance 
about this time, especially among those who were 
left in charge of their masters' houses. Relations and 
sometimes acquaintances would attend one another,, 
but many died unknown and unlamented. At the : 

corner of street and Broadway, a respectable 

family removed, leaving a man-servant in charge of: 
the house ; after some days it was noticed he did not 
appear in the street as usual; it was supposed that 



GRANT THORBURN, 109 

he had shut up the house and fled ; in a day or two 
after, a person who had charge of a house whose win- 
dows looked into the yard of said house, observed 
the man sitting in a sort of arbor or summer-house ; 
he supposed the man had returned, took no more 
notice till next day, when seeing him still sitting for 
hours in the same position, he gave the alarm, the 
door was forced, and the man found dead, partly un- 
dressed. In this and subsequent fevers, cats, and in 
some cases dogs, were thoughtlessly left shut up to 
die a cruel death ; the streets also were swarming 
with famishing animals, whose piteous bowlings 
added much to the distress of the few inhabitants 
who were unable to leave the city. In these times 
that tried the souls as well as the bodies of men, I 
saw parents fly from their sick children, and children 
from their parents, husbands from their wives, but 
never, except in one solitary instance, did I see a 
woman desert her husband in distress. She, tobe 
sure, was married to a great lump of a fellow old 
enough to be her father, rather a sloven, and appa- 
rently a proper-subject for the yellow fever. As soon 
as he was fairly reported, she snatched up her young- 
est child, got on board a potato sloop at Peck-slip, 
and never stopped till she got out at Stonington light- 
house, or somewhere down east ; for in a few days 
thereafter I received a letter from her, wishing to be 
informed if her husband was dead. From the tenor 
of her letter I expect she was wofully disap- 
pointed when she received my answer, (for he 
10 



ILO REMINISCENCES OF 

lived to lay her head very quietly in the grave about 
three years after.) She was a real Yankee, but I did 
not think she was a daughter of the Purita?is. I 
rather supposed she must have sprung from them 
lang-&\deA, corn-fed wenches and whale-killing 
sailors who peopled all that country round Cape 
Cod, — [a full account of which you will find in Knick- 
erbocker's History of that period.] 



June ISth, 1S32, the signs of the times induced me 
to search up my manuscripts. A morning paper ex- 
horts his readers to arm themselves against fear, — 
fear in many is constitutional, they cannot help it. 
But I think if the printers and doctors continue their 
alarms and nostrums one week longer, we will have 
amongst us the worst of all diseases, viz. the reign of 
terror. It is just now as it was in August, 179S, — one 
came outrecommendingbeef and bread, another bread 
and milk for diet, some were flooded with the vinegar 
o? four thieves, while multitudes were stuffed with 
anti-bilious, anti-yellow-fever pills ; many I thought, 
very many, tortured their frames with medicine, pre- 
ventives, preparatives and terror, till they were so 
reduced as to fall an easy prey to the first attack. 
Fear is infectious, and those who are already afflicted 
with this worst of epidemics, will do well for them- 
selves and neighbors to leave the city immediately ; 
and if the disease does appear among us, I would 
advise (from former experience) all who have the 
means, to leave the city at once. With regard to eat- 



GRANT THORBURN. Ill 

ing, drinking and exercise, I have found that the 
same moderation which kept my head cool and feet 
warm, was the cheapest and surest /^rere^zz'fre. I 
cannot see, for my part, a cause sufficient for so great 
a fear. Let him who can, prepare for flight, and for 
those whom imperious duty may prevent, let them 
only believe in a ipariicular Providence — Death's 
shafts may fly thick, but their aim is directed by 
Omnipotence. When the man drew the bow at a 
venture, the unerring eye of Him who alike views 
the fall of a sparrow and the crash of an empire, 
directed the shaft, it entered between the joints of 
the harness, the proud mortal sunk down in his cha- 
riot. At best there is but a step between us and 
death, the bursting of a boiler, a slate from the roof, 
or a crumb of the food that we swallow, can do 
death's business as quickly as the Cholera. 



Of all the nostrums in use at this time, the Vi7ie- 
gar of Four Thieves was the most sovereign; a story 
was tied to its tail which insured its character as a 
most powerful specific. In 1555, or some other year 
either before or after, a dreadful plague raged in 
Marseilles, in France. The people fled, the city was 
visited by no one except four tl»eves, who daily en- 
tered, robbed the houses and carried their plunder 
to the mountains. The astonished citizens, who had 
hid themselves in the dens and caves of the earth for 
fear of the plague, saw them daily pass and rej^ass 
with their ill-gotten gear, and wondered most pro- 



112 REMINISCENCES OF 

foundly why the plague did not seize them. In pro- 
cess of time, however, one of these thieves was taken 
by some of the man-traps of those days ; they were 
just going to break him on the wheel, when he said 
if they would spare his life he would teach them to 
make the vinegar of four thieves, by means of which 
they had escaped the plague when robbing the city. 
His request was granted : and lo ! in New-York we 
had it in such profusion that it reached to the mouth 
and nose of most of the men in the city, though many 
of them were above five feet ten inches high; and 
so powerful was its effects on some of the venders, 
that whereas formerly they were obliged to plod 
their way through the lanes and streets of the city 
on their legs, they were now enabled to sit in a car- 
riage and be drawn along by four-footed beasts and 
creeping things of the earth. Where they got so 
much of this thievish vinegar 1 never could find out; 
but I strongly suspect it was made from crab apples 
by some of them Hackensack farmers in the Jerseys. 
Be this as it may, you could hardly meet a man in 
the street but had a bottle at his nose, till their nose- 
points and upper lips were tanned as brown as the 
sole of a new-made boot. As for the few women 
who were left, they contented themselves by stuff- 
ing their brains with Scotch snuff, which had quite 
as good an effect in preventing the yellow fever. 
At this time there was a famous Mediciner in the 

city, by the name of Dr. . I well remember on 

my first landing, about four years previous, of im- 



GRANT THOREITRN. 113 

bibing a wonderful antipathy against him and all 
patent medicines, their makers and their sellers 
throughout the world. The incident was this : I 
stepped from the good ship Providence, (in which 
I had crossed the Atlantic,) on shore at Governeur's 
wharf, about 7 a. m., came sauntering up the middle 
of Wall-street — there were few carts then to ob- 
struct the way — arriving at the old Federal Hall, 
where now stands the Custom House, I observed 
a placard about a yard square and headed with let- 
ters as large as my hand — Scotch Ointment for the 
Itch. I was confounded ; I rubbed my eyes and read 
it again : — said I, It's an abominable lie ; for I never 
heard of such an ointment in Scotland, nor did I ever 
see any use for it there. I stood and looked and 
reasoned more calmly on the matter. Said I to 
myself. Well, this man must make a living by selling 
this stuff to somebody ; but it is impossible he could 
live by rubbing the hides of what few Scotchmen 
are here, for I have not met one to-day as I know of, 
I therefore concluded that here must be collected, 
whether homespun or imported, a group of dirty 
fellows, all scratching and itching for something, 
otherwise he could not live amongst them. So 
when the yellow fever commenced, and he amongst 
the first came out with his specifics, his preventives, 
his pills and his purgatives, saidi, he shall never 
get a cent of my money, die or live. I had not for- 
got the box of ointment I saw on the wall, but per- 
haps this prejudice was the means of saving my life; 
10^ 



114 REMINISCENCES OF 

for I verily believe, had I swallowed one half of the 
stuffs then recommended, I would not have lived 
half my days. To conclude, this man died and was 
buried : one of his countrymen (they were English- 
men) composed an epitaph, (which was never pub- 
lished,) part of it ran thus : 

" He cured a million of Scotchmen in his day : 
"Death itched for him and scratched the man away." 

At this time the Post-office was removed, and 
kept during the fever in the house of Dr. James 
Tillery, corner of Broadway and Wall-street. The 
Doctor (a better never crossed the doors of Edin- 
burgh College) gave it as his opinion that there was 
no danger to be apprehended by persons out of town 
coming or sending for their, letters any time from 
nine a. m. to sun-down. As almost every man at this 
time was his own letter-carrier, Broadway was pretty 
well frequented in the above hours by persons going 
to or returning from the Post-office. On Sabbath too, 
the Episcopal ministers, who had removed to Green- 
wich and Bloomingdale, came down as the bell 
tolled, on horse-back or in a chair, tied the horse to 
one of the trees, said their prayers and read their 
sermons, and so went home again — thus they kept 
their churches opened all the fever of 1798. Dr. Pil- 
more, too, stood like a son of thunder, and preached 
every Sabbath day in the church in Ann-street. The 
Methodists too, in John-street — these sober-sided old 
fellows, who almost preach for nothing and find 
themselves, stood, as it were, between the living and 



GRANT THORBURN. 115 

the dead. Their church-doors were seldom closed. 
I In the quietness of the day and stillness of the night 
[ their notes of prayer and songs of praise could be 
heard for many blocks around. In this there was 
something soothing to the poor mortals who were 
standing round the open graves, waiting till death 
came behind and pushed them in. But the reformed 
and orthodox churches were all shut up. I wondered 
at the time, if the letters of the merchant, or the 
prayer-book of the Episcopal, was of more conse- 
quence to them than preaching to the dry bones and 
dying mortals was to the orthodox and reformed 
ministers. 

Now, you may observe, I am not laying down any 
fundamental or fixed principle in this matter. I am 
telling you what I thought at the time. It brought to 
my mind, and I could not help drawing a comparison 
with a story I read, I think it was in Harrison's Mu- 
seum, printed at No. 3 Peck-slip. It happened about 
twenty years before Bonaparte entered Italy ; and 
showed to the world that the Pope in Rome had no 
more power in heaven and in earth, nor in the waters 
under the earth, than the most weak and sickly of 
Adam's sons ; inasmuch as all the Bulls he could 
muster could not so much as stop the progress of a 
single French pistol-ball. I say it was at this time 
when the Bishops in France were believed to be 
something more than men — that the Bishop of Paris, 
after being well fed, and well watered, (with wine,) 
took an English nobleman out to show him all his 



116 REMINISCENCES OF 

kingdom, and the glory thereof: he had fine gar- 
dens and fine green-houses, fine fountains, and fine 
baths, Brussels carpets and beautiful parlors, a beau- 
tiful library and elegant pictures ; but one thing 
needful was wanting which is a very essential article 
in comfortable house-keeping, viz. he had no beau- 
tiful wife — this the canons (these powerful engines 
of the church) forbid. Having seen all these pretty 
articles, ah ! exclaims the nobleman, what a pity : 
death will come and rob you of them all. Ah ! repli- 
ed the Bishop, there's the rub; most willingly would 
I forego my seat in Paradise, provided I could retain 
my place in Paris. Now, for the life of me, I could 
not help thinking that some of the shepherds of the 
flock at that time in New- York were exactly on this 
point of the same opinion with the Bishop of Paris. 



A.uiit Schuyler's Grave. 

" Thou with familiar things art gently laid." 

It was about the twentieth of the hot month of 
July, when people who are at ease, eating, sitting 
or sleeping in their spacious palaces in State-street, 
and whose lofty rooms are cooled by the fresh 
breeze from the Atlantic with each returning tide ; 
when those who have ice to cool their water, fruit 



GRANT THORBURN. 117 

to cool their blood, and fans to cool their faces, and 
who leave all the sober realities of life which they 
enjoy in those mansions of health on the banks of 
our rivers, will dive into those hot-beds of perspira- 
tion, the after-cabins of line-boats on the Grand 
Canal, in search of bliss. It was at this season, 
having finished the business which called me west, 
I thought it would be more profitable and more 
comfortable to adopt a retrograde rather than a for- 
ward movement; for, in the forward march, you are 
first in danger of suffocation in the cabin; or, se- 
condly, of having your head struck from your shoul- 
ders by one of those low-minded bridges which 
everywhere intersect the canal. 

Before setting my face to the east, however, I 
took a stand between the living mass on the canal- 
boats and the dead mass of trunks, bandboxes and 
other domestic lumber moving 'from the railroad- 
cars. One hoary-headed veteran had under his com- 
mand no less than twenty-two persons, consisting of 
wives, servants and children of the first and second 
crop ; the young ones crying, the pld ones screaming, 
the servants swearing and the lalrge drops of sweat 
rolling over the rubicund nose and cheeks of the 
veteran, made you think of a shower of red currants 
on a mountain of snow. I calculate the expense of 
this same caravan could not be less that thirty dollars 
per day ; to be sure at the Springs they expect to 
hear music and dancing; but I thought this was 
paying too dear for their whistle. 



118 REMINISCENCES OF 

I lingered in the streets, and entered some of t! 
houses in Schenectady. I inquired of the ancic 
men of the city some particulars of that dreadfui 
winter's night, when the place was wrapped in one 
funeral flame by a horde of savage Indians, led on 
by a band of French assassins yet more savage. 
"When the Frenchman's sword pierced through the 
infant at the breast and entered the heart of its 
mother. When the knife of the Indian, in yet more 
tender mercy, tore the hoary scalp from the man of 
fourscore. The scenes of that night are too harrow- 
ing for my pen; but most justly has the avenger of 
blood appeased their manes, by giving the nation 
who sent their blood-hounds to these peaceful shores 
blood to drink, because they were worthy of it only. 

I stood on the banks of the Mohawk River, whose 
fertile plains were made more rich by the bones and 
blood of that faithful tribe, shed in defence of the 
white man's fireside ; but he has given up the ghost, 
and where is he ] 

I met three squaws returning from the city ; their 
dress was neat and clean ; one of them wore a finer 
blanket and had more ornaments on her feet and 
neck than her companions. Her countenance was 
comely, though tinged with melancholy. I offered 
them a pittance, which they received with a courtesy. 
I felt as an intruder on their soil. I looked on the 
moving crowds in cars and carriages flying along 
with horse and steam, all catching folly as it flies, 
and grasping at pleasure as it slipped through their 



GRANT THORBURN. 119 

fingers. 1 thought it was better to go to the place 
of mourning than the house of mirth, as the former 
is the end of all things, and the living will lay it to 
the heart ; so I left the shouts of mirth, crackling 
like thorns under the pot, and bent my stej^s to the 
grave of Aunt Schuyler. This house of silence lies 
on the banks of the Hudson, between Albany and 
Troy, in view of the Isle of Swans, so beautifully 
described by Mrs. Grant in her History of an 
American Lady, lately republished. Here rests the 
mortal part of those who belonged to that worthy 
family, perhaps beginning with him whose moulder- 
ing clay first mingled with American soil ; and here 
lie unstrung the sturdy arms which first stemmed the 
stream and coursed the rapids of the broad-spread- 
ing Mohawk in search of Indian traffic. While I 
stood by the grave (for reverence kept back my foot,) 
I thought how cold now was the warm heart of her 
who once spread pleasure all around ; who poured 
balm on the wounds of the fallen Samaritan, from 
the highest officer of his majesty down to the hardy 
suckling of the ill-fated Indian squaw. 

The graveyard is surrounded by a neat fence and 
shaded by ancient trees ; near by stands the manor 
or family mansion, built in the good old-fashioned 
style of Dutch comfort. It was in this abode of un- 
bounded hospitality that Aunt Schuyler lived, moved 
and had her being. It was nearly destroyed by fire 
in the summer of 1759. Madam was sitting under a 
clump of cherry trees in front of the house, uncon- 



120 REMINISCENCES OF 

scious of the firfe which was already making rapid 
progress in the garret. General Bradstreet, com- 
manding a British regiment then lying in the vi- 
cinity, was riding ujD to the house, and first observed 
the smoke ; he was afraid to alarm her, but when he 
told her she heard it with the utmost composure. 
Keeping her seat, she ordered every thing in the 
most composed manner, as if she had. nothing to 
lose. It is rebuilt on the same plan, and part of the 
old wall incorporated in the building. It is now oc- 
cupied by a lineal descendant, a widow, a fine-look- 
ing, corpulent Dutch matron, of three-score years ; 
and, from Mrs. Grant's description of Madam, and 
during an hour's social conversation with this lady 
in Aunt Schuyler's room, I almost fancied I saw be- 
fore me the spirit and the person of her who sat 
there nearly a century ago, when directing the stu- 
dies and smiling on the playful sports of Mrs. Grant, 
the widow of General Hamilton, and other distin- 
guished relics of the days o' lang syne. I here 
saw a full-length portrait of Mr. Philip Schuyler,* 
dressed as he appeared before Queen Anne in 1709, 
and painted by her request. The queen offered to 
make him a knight ; he declined the honor by saying 
he had brothers in America not so rich as himself, 
and he did not wish to bear a higher title than they. . 

* For a very interesting history of this worthy gentlemaoj 
see Paulding's DtUchmari's Fireside^ and Mrs. Grant's history i 
aforesaid. 



GRAWT THORBUKN. 121 

The son and grandson of the present occupant very 
politely conducted me round the premises, pointing 
out the spots and localities referred to in Mrs. 
Grant's American Lady. I here enjoyed a feast of 
reason and a flow of soul not every day to be met 
v/ith. We talked of Troy ; a gentleman in company 
j hnew it when it contained three houses. We talked 
of Albany as it looked in 1707, when, as soon as the 
sun had sunk behind the Catskill Mountains, you 
might have seen the whole population in the streets. 
These primitive beings were seated in porches, 
grouped together according to similarity of years 
or inclinations ; at one door young matrons, at 
another the elders of the people, at a third the 
youths and maidens gayly chatting or singing toge- 
ther, while the children played around the trees, or 
waited by the cows for the chief ingredient of their 
frugal support, which they generally ate sitting on 
the steps in the open air. Then there were no banks 
nor exchange-offices ; no Eagle-Hotel nor lottery- 
office ; no opera nor playhouse ; no Italian rope nor 
stage-dancers ; no men singers nor women singers ; 
no live elephants and monkeys, which pick the pock- 
1 ets of simple men and silly women of their hard earn- 
{ ings, no, no, they were then unknown ; even the law- 
I yer and doctor were obliged to hoe corn for a living, 
and the spade of the grave-digger was laid by to rust. 
Now I was induced to visit this venerated spot by 
a combination of recollections and reminiscences of 
days gone by. It was in the years when the yellow 
11 



122 REMINISCENCES OF 

fever annually swept our streets, and most of the in- 
habitants fled for refuge to the country. For reasons 
which satisfied myself, I always remained, and as I 
never got the fever, my neighbors used to think I 
never would. Therefore, when they shut up their 
houses, before going away they left their keys with 
me, to be ready in case of fire, or to air them occa- 
sionally, &c. Among them were the keys of several 
churches, the city library, &c. As I lived in what 
was termed the infected district during the fever of 
1822, and as the board of health undertook to board 
in or to board out the fever with a few hundred of 
Albany boards, I of course was boarded in and 
boarded out also, and having nothing else to do, I 
spent my time among the sick, and among the books 
in the City Library. Then I used to roam through 
fields and floods of fancy, entirely forgetting the 
signs of the times. 

In one of these airy flights I laid my hand on the 
American Lady, printed by my late esteemed friend, 
Mr. Samuel Campbell, in 1809. (Mr. Campbell died 
a few years ago, perhaps the oldest book-publisher 
in America.) I had never heard of this book, and 
I read it with both pleasure and profit. In my late 
visit to Scotland I paid my respects to the worthy 
authoress of this book, the honorable Mrs. Grant, 
of Lagan, who, I understand, yet lives, enjoying 
health in body and mind, in the eighty-fifth year of 
her age. Conversing about the book, she assured 
me it was no romance, but a plain matter-of-faci 



GRANT THORBtTRN. 123 

Statement of events, to many of which she was an 
eye-witness. I was much pleased a few weeks ago 
to see this book republished. I would recommend to 
every man, woman and child, having a drop of New- 
York State blood in their veins, to get this book, to- 
gether with Paulding's DiitchmarC s Fireside, (which 
completes the history of the worthies referred to,) 
and if they can read without the blood dancing 
through their veins, their hearts must be as cold as 
the marble of Siberia. 



Graham's Bread Again. 

"Some men would wiser be 
*' Than Him who form'd them ; would eschew the good 
" God gives to all so richly to enjoy." 

Fifteen more Lectures, to commence on Monday 
evening, forty-five on Sunday evenings of last year, 
a letter to a late worthy Mayor of ours, as long as 
your arm, besides sundry essays to certain cholera 
doctors who had the impudence to say it was better 
for a man to swallow six ounces of wheat kernels, 
than to cram down a whole back-load of husks and 
cut straw, which are only fit for swine to eat — why, 
the thing is monstrous ; — sixty-five lectures on 
bread! — it's worse than the burying of 11,500 " pav- 
ing stones," which took place in Broadway about 
twenty years ago ; and it's worse than the fourteen 



124 REMINISCENCES OF 

Tomes (every one of whicli was as large as the. 
Dutch Church Bible) wrote by Father Ambrose in 
the thirteenth century, on the patience of Job. 
Now all this ap|)ears to me to be absurd nonsense — 
a wind of words — ja loss of time, I will put it in 
three words, and prove it by experience (better 
than a thousand baseless theories) to be true — that 
is — Never eat, enough. About forty years ago, hav- 
ing read the account of the mutiny on board of the 
ship Bounty, Captain Bligh, when he and a number 
of his crew were set adrift in the middle of the 
ocean, with only a few bags of bread and a few gal- 
lons of water; how they lived many days on two or 
three ounces of biscuit and a few drops of water, 
measured to them every twenty-four hours in a nut- 
shell ; how they at length made land, and were able 
to walk, &c. ; thinks I to myself, we surely eat and 
drink more than is necessary to support our feeble 
frames. Next day at dinner I laid on my plate the 
usual number of slices of roast beef and bread; having 
demolished about one half, I arose, went quietly about 
my business, returned to the table fifteen minutes 
thereafter, tried to eat, but could not, my taste and 
appetite was gone — that afternoon I felt more light, 
easy, comfortable, and more fit for business than 
I had done for many days previous, nor did I 
feel any wish to partake of my tea sooner than mv 
usual hour ; next day I repeated the experimen. 
with the same comfortable success, and so I have con- 
tinued until this day, going from my store, eating my 



I 



GRANT THORBURN. 125 

i victuals, and back. — I am never absent over twenty- 
I five minutes ; four ounces of meat, boiled or roasted, 
I as many of the finest of w^heat bread, with half a 
pint of coffee left from the morning, serves for my 
usual dinner — thus have I lived for thirty years with- 
out having to pay a doctor or apothecary one dollar 
for patching my own carcass. It is not by using 
the good things which a kind Providence has laid so 
bountifully to our hands, but by abusing them, that 
men convert these into curses to themselves ; after 
I cramming, for the space of twenty years, commenc- 
iing at eight in the morning and closing at midnight, 
i with smoked beef, Bologna sausages, turtle soup, and 
I fried oysters, in such quantities that they can hardly 
i rise from their seat ; by these means they destroy 
the powers of digestion, and then they complain of 
dyspepsia, and growl at their hard lot, after they 
I have poisoned their frame by the abuse of the very 
means which God gave them for its support; now 
these men are past all remedy — they may eat bran 
or husks, or what they please, but they will never 
again have a proper relish for the good things of 
this life; but young men of twenty- two may avoid 
this rock. With regard to young and old women, 
in all my practice I never found a case of dyspepsia 
among them ; it is only among those blustering, purse- 
proud, long-whiskered lords of the creation, who 
lower themselves beneath the beasts that perish. I 
say again, that young men may avoid this rock ; the 
I experiment is easily tried. You have no idea on how 
11* 



126 REMINISCENCES OF 

few ounces of good substantial food a man may go 
through the labors of a day. I am on my feet from 
five or six o'clock in the morning till nine o'clock in 
the evening, without sitting thirty minutes in all that 
time, yet I don't eat above twenty-four ounces of ; 
food in the twenty-four hours — but, then, it is sub- 
stantial food, which supports the body without over- j 
loading the stomach. I 

It is a fact well worth considering, that none of 
the colleges of physicians, from the days that Noah's 
ark was afloat, down to the present time, have been 
able to tell \,4iat quantity of food is necessary to 
support human nature. With regard to Mr. Gra- 
ham, I have never seen him, to my knowledge, but 
I think he must be a small mortal ; for I have ever 
found that the little dogs barked longest and loudest r 
in the barn-yards — neither have I tasted his bread, ] 
though I have seen it on tables where I have dined, j 
It looked to me very much like bran and brickbats | 
pounded and compounded together, with perhaps a i 
few ounces of conceit intermixed, to make people 
believe it would do them good whether they swal- 
lowed it or not. I always thought superfine wheat 
flour was preferable. Why, really, I do think it the 
very height of impudence (I had almost said) to 
suppose that we, who have lived to see very near 
the middle of the nineteenth century, have so little 
common sense that we are now to be lectured into 
the belief that chaff is better than wheat. You re- 
member it is mentioned in the old Book, as an in- 



GRANT THORBURN. 127 

Stance of God's kindness to the children of Israel, 
i that he fed them with the Ji/iest of the wheat. Now I 
, am perfectly convinced, in my own mind, that Ca- 
naan never produced better wheat, nor the land of 
Goshen better flour, than what comes down the ca- 
nal from Buffalo and Rochester. And are we now 
to be told, at our time of life, and in this age of dis- 
covery, that the children of the Yankees have not as 
good a right to eat of this fine wheat, as had the 
children of the long-bearded fraternity a thousand years 
ago 1 Besides, you don't read of any one feeding on 
husks, except it might be profligates and swine. Now, 
surely you don't call our cold, calculating stock-job- 
bers profligates ; nor would you compare any of our 
imported patriots to swine — notwithstanding their 
rolling in the gutter at election times, as though they 
were whole hogs. Now, in all this matter, I have no 
ill-will against brother Graham. I believe he is a 
man of fine feelings, of fine speech, and of fine faste: 
but I have been thinking to what better account he 
might turn his powerful eloquence. We'll suppose, 
for instance, that he and AVilliam Thompson, of 
Brooklyn, were to cast in their lots and go forth to- 
gether, declaring a most powerful crusade against all 
bachelors and rats' nests, and prosecuting this object 
with zeal and perseverance, there is no telling the 
amount of good that might accrue from their joint 
labors over this wide-spread but thinly-populated 
country — and in their absence let the good folks in 
New-York take chars^e of their own stomachs — 



128 REMINISCENCES OF 

without any more lecturing — let one and all of them 
eat of the best that is set before them; but remem- 
ber, never eat enough, 

P. S. With regard to the drinkahle part of soci- 
ety, Mr. G. is informed that he need not be uneasy 
on their accounts — that he need not distract his 
thoughts, which might mar his studies, an' so curtail 
the sphere of usefulness in his future labors of love, 
as there is little doubt that as soon as the river 
opens to Albany, there will be a deputation from 
some of the auxiliaries belono-ins^ to the Female 
Temperance Society in the city of Schenectady, 
which will take care of this department of our State 
in his absence. 



Anecdote of Mrs. Baron Mure. 

"Alas! that learning so profound, 
" And wit so exquisite, siiould meet a fate so base, 
" So galling to tiie pride of vanity." 

This lady resided in Edinburgh in 1774. In the 
acceptation of those days, she was accounted a great 
bluestocking — maintaining, for instance, a constant 
correspondence with David Hume. On hearing of 
the death of that philosopher, she felicitated herself 
upon posse?sing so many of his epistolary composi- 
tions, as she expected that her letters of course 



GRANT THORBURN. 129 

would make a most respectable appearance when his 
correspondence or biography came to be published. 
Quoth she to some friends who were by her at the time, 
"I have most carefully preserved the letters of my il- 
lustrious friend — putting them all away in a drawer by 
themselves." She proposed going immediately to pro- 
duce them for the gratification of her friends ; but on 
opening the drawer, however, she recollected that some 
time previous, on its becoming too full, she had tied up 
the letters with tape and conveyed them to a general 
receptacle for loose papers in an upper chamber. It 
was some time before the exact location of the papers 
could be ascertained ; but they were not to be found. 
Here the followingr dialosfue ensued between her and 
her servant-maid : — 

" What has become, Jenny," said Mrs. Mure, ** of 
the bundle tied up in a red tape, that I put into that 
corner 1 — you must surely remember it: where do 
you think it is V 

" Yon, ma'am 1" cried Jenny, as if a sudden burst 
of light had come in upon her — " vas't yon V 

"■ Ay, it was yon, as you call it," responded the 
blue-stocking — "where is yon 1" 

" Lord bless me, ma'am !" cried Jenny, " I've been 
singin'* hens wi' them this ha'f year !" 

Such was the fate of one large branch of the cor- 
respondence of this pride-puffed philosopher. As for 
Mrs. Blue-Stocking, she never ceased to lament the 

* Singin^ hens [Scottish] — that is, singing fowls after the 
feathers are plucked off, over a blaze of paper. 



130 REMINISCENCES OF 

catastrophe while life and reason remained. She 
was a freethinker like himself, and showed very little 
concern about his death ; but was mightily mortified 
that she could not shine in print as one of his corres- 
pondents. 



Men and Manners in E^ngland. 

" But where to find that happiest spot below, 
"Who shall direct, when all pretend to know?" 

On the evening of the twenty-second of Novem- 
ber, eleven years ago, I was at a party of respectables 
in London, consisting of some twenty or thirty gen- 
tlemen and ladies, and the principal subjects of con- 
versation were Mrs. Trollope and her book — I then 
learned for the first time, by the way, that such a 
woman really existed, and that she was actually resid- 
ing within a mile of the house at which I was. You 
may well suppose that I was astonphed, for until that 
moment I had always supposed the author of the book 
to be one of the Quarterly Keviewers in disguise. I 
took a walk the next day to have a look at the old wo- 
man, but she was not at home, and I did not call again. 
But to return from this digression. As you have read 
her handiwork, you may easily imagine what sort of ! 
questions would be put, and I will tell you how I an- 
swered them. I observed, in the first place, that when 
Fiedlers and mountebanks spend forty days in travel- 



GRANT THORBURN. 131 

ling through a country so extensive as America, about 
-fifteen of which, by the way, were spent in sleep, and 
then sit down to give an account of what they saw 
and did not see, they ought not to be branded as impos- 
tors because their information proves to be incorrect ; 
the public, if they think at all, ought not to expect 
correct information from such sources, respecting the 
character and manners of a people ; and if they do, 
they richly deserve to be imposed on. But they are 
not imposed on; they buy these books as they do 
kny other work of fiction, with their eyes wide open, 
some to be amused, and some for the mere sake of 
knowing how great a lie a traveller can tell ; and of 
course the writers are quite consistent in exerting 
themselves with all their might to satisfy their readers. 

" Perhaps," said I, " there is no country upon earth 
where ladies are so highly respected as they are in 
America. I speak from forty years' experience — not 
that of forty days ; and if the writer of Mrs. TroUope's 
book had really been a lady of taste, and delicacy, and 
feeling, she would have rejoiced to find at least one 
country under the sun where woman holds the exact 
place in society to which she is entitled, and for which 
she was designed by her Creator — namely, the place 
of man's helpmate and companion, not his slave. 
This consideration made me think the writer of the 
Trollope-book could be no lady — perhaps, I might 
say, no woman ; the fact of her travelling with Fanny 
Wright ought to expel her fi'om the company of women. 

" It is really provoking to hear European writers 



132 REMINISCENCES OF 

comparing themselves with themselves, exalting them- 
selves by themselves, and impeachmgtlie Americans 
for want of refinement. It is like Cobbett teaching 
honor, or the devil preaching truth. The standard 
of refinement is, or ought to be, established by the 
place which woman holds in society, and the usage 
she receives from the falsely called 'lords of creation ;' 
and your writers have the confidence to make com- 
parisons between Europe and America in this respect. 
I know," said I, "that God has made many of your 
women angels of beauty — the present company, for 
instance; and among your actresses are some of the 
handsomest creatures in the world ; but the man- 
savage of the eastern hemisphere treats them as infe- 
rior beings. In Africa, women are his beasts of bur- 
den ; in Asia, the soulless instruments of his brutal 
pleasures, and articles of merchandise ; and in pro- 
portion as they excel in beauty, the more shameful is 
their treatment ; sold by one tyrant to another, with 
as little concern as would be felt in trafficing for an 
ass or a young camel. In Europe their degradation 
is still deeper, for there they receive just education 
enough to know their rights and the place they ought 
to fill and to enjoy, and are thus made to feel more 
acutely the abject state in which they are plunged by 
the tyranny of man. Many of them, young, lovely, 
sensitive creatures, are shut up in monasteries, and 
this, too, by those who gave them birth ; or married, 
without consulting their own inclinations, to some old, 
worn-out, rich or titled debauchee — the kindly im- 



GRAlh' TIIORBURN. 133 

•pulses of their nature thwarted, and all the useful 
purposes fur which they were created lost to the 
world and to themselves. Compared with this, the 
burning of a Hindoo widow is a tender mercy. 

" In our own day we have seen in France, that 
country of chivalry, gallantry, and refinement, young, 
learned, high-born and accomplished females led out 
by ruffians, whose hands yet smoked with blood — we 
have seen them tied in groups, after the manner of 
the savages in our western wilds — we have seen their 
heads roll in the basket of the guillotine til] the arms 
of the executioner grew faint. In England, women 
are still seen exposed for sale in open market, with 
halters round their necks. Were such brutalities 
attempted in America on women, every rifle from 
Main to the Rocky Mountains would be raised in her 
defence, and yet your book-makers have the very 
great modesty to talk to Americans about refinement. 

" There is another source of misery to the ladies in 
Europe, (not known in America,) and which sours 
all the sweet charities of their lives : viz. their family 
distinctions, their bloods and their titles. Thousands 
of them are here sacrificed, like Jephtha's daughter ; 
hence the forced marriages, the unhappy marriages, 
the runaway marriages, the elopements, and finally, 
the crim. con. trials — words, the very meaning of 
which is unknown to the ladies of America. 

A gentleman remarked, " If you hold such senti- 
ments in your book, I fear it will meet a small sale 
amongst us." Said I, " Sir, there is not a spot in the 
12 



134 REMINISCENCES OF 



world where liberty of speech and opinion (barrin 
treason) is more tolerated than in London ; my boo 
containsjust such a chapter, for the benefit of Fiedlei 
Trollope, and Co. Besides, I observed in a windo\ 
yesterday, a pamphlet in vindication of America 
against the aspirations of Trollope, by an Englishman 
and that pamphlet went into a second edition in si: 
weeks." 



blai 



O bi tuar y. 

"Let it grow 
"Greener with years, and blossom through their flight." 



It has ever been the custom for man, whether in 
a civil or uncivilized state, to pay a decent respect 
to departed worth. The principle is honorable to 
human nature, and useful in society, inasmuch as it 
stimulates to the practice of whatsoever things are 
pure, honest, lovely, and of good report. 

It is not meant as a burlesque on this jDraise worthy 
practice, that I now give you an obituary notice of 
a departed mansion ; but it is to keep up the re- 
membrance. Know then, that on the 10th Septem- 
ber, 1835, the Friends' Meeting-house in Liberty- 
street vanished from out of the city. To say that it 
died a natural death would not be the fact, for the 
building was strong enough to have withstood the 



CfRANT THOHEURN. 135 

)lasts of centuries ; but of late it has been the pre- 
f-aiHng disease to pluck up, pull down, and erase 
vhatever is ancient in structure or honorable from 
ige in this our swelling city. In 1794 stood a Ger- 
nan church in Broadway ; it was then used for a 
torehouse ; on its site now stands Grace church. 
'J'ublic stores cover the spot where lately towered 
he weather-beaten steeple of the French Protestant 
church in Pine-street. In Cedar, between Nassau 
md William-streets, where stood the Presbyterian 
church, are now stores of cotton and bags of wool. 
The Lutheran, known by the name of Labagh's 
church, in Nassau, near Maiden-lane, is occupied by 
Dummer and his tea-pots of china. Already has 
commerce fixed her Argus-eyes on the Middle Dutch 
md Scotch Presbyterian churches in Cedar-street; 
md ere long (where the eloquent Dr. Mason used 
o pour forth the thoughts that breathe and words 
hat burn) nothing will be heard there but the song 
)f the windlass and the black foot of the negro 
;rampling over that consecrated spot ; thanks for the 
lope of another and a better world, where turning 
md overturning is unknown. 

But to return to the meeting-house, where Joseph 
Delaplaine, Anna Brathwait, and many, very many 
ivorthy brothers and sisters of that sect worshipped 
3od in the small still voice of his word, and where 
Flora lately held her courts, smiling at Solomon and 
all his artificial glory. 

As my earliest and most pleasing recollections 



136 REMINISCENCES OF 

are connected with that house and neighborhood, I 
will give you a few anecdotes of some characters 
and circumstances that have transpired within the last 
forty-one years of my residence in that street ; but I 
cannot forego the pleasure of first calling to remem- 
brance the name of that upright merchant and finish- 
ed gentleman, the late Mr. Isaac "Wright, who first 
advertised packets to sail at a stated hour; and hov/ 
well he redeemed his pledge the public know and 
feel by profitable experience. I now hold in my 
hand Lang & Turner's New- York Gazette of Janu 
ary 5th, 1818, in which the editor remarks, "This 
day will witness the commencement of the line o; 
American packets between New-York and Liver 
pool. The James Munro will take her departur( 
this morning at 10 o'clock. What a striking evi 
dence it furnishes of the growing commerce of ou 
city, of the activity of her merchants, and the skill 
and intrepidity of her seamen. It is to be hoped tha 
this arrangement will be completely successful, as it 
promises to be of great public utility. It will be 
a sort of chain connecting the new and the old 
world," &:c. 

From the sailing of this packet we may date the 
day from whence the commerce of New-Ycrk be- i 
gan to increase seren-fold ; and as long as the waters 
of the lakes, the Hudson, and the ocean continue to 
amaloamate, the names of Fulton, LiviuGTSton, Clin- 
ton, and Isaac Wright will be held in remembrance 
by a grateful posterity. But in our day, gratitude is 



GRANT THOEEURN.' 137 

a rare virtue indeed. By the way, for the pleasure 
and profit of these packets (for now they run to al- 
most every port in Europe and on our own conti- 
nent) we are indebted to Quaker punctuality ; and 
as you all acknowledge the fitness and beauty of the 
thing, why not go and do likewise. Is it not an in- 
sult to common sense to invite a m.an to attend the 
funeral of his brother at five, when he knows his ser- 
vices are not wanted till seven 1 If time is worth 
twenty-five cents per hour, why keep fifty men wait- 
ing two hours, at a loss of fifty cents each, just be- 
cause you want nerve to carry forward your own ar- 
rangements. Look at the domestic economy of the 
Friends, their system and regularity in all things — 
it is thus they are able to give towards the support 
of the poor of other denominations, while they them- 
selves ask help from none. 

In 1794 there stood a small building in front of 
the house now removed ; it was occupied as a school 
for the society, and by it stood a weeping-willow, 
which shaded the school and dropt its tears on the 
pavement opposite. If my memory serves, in 1802 
or 3 the schoolhouse was taken down, and the pre- 
sent building set up ; the house was used as a place 
of worship, and the ground as a place of burial, till 
after the yellow-fever of 1822. Since then the meet- 
ings were 'only held on particular occasions, and, if I 
mistake not, there was only one interment since. In 
October, 1826, I purchased the premises ; the fol- 
lowing December the ground all around and under 
12* 



138 REBII^'ISCENCES OF 

the meeting-house was trenched to the depth of 
seven feet ; the bones carefully collected, packed in 
neat boxes, and deposited in a cemetery out of town. 
In removing the bones we discovered some interest- 
ins^ relics ; amonof them was a les: and thicjh bone, 
each of which measured two inches more than the 
longest leo: or this^li bones which we could select 
from a great number ; the man must have been a 
giant. Another leg and thigh bone had been dis- 
eased in the knee-pan, the joint of the knee had 
grown solid, the leg crooked out behind in the. form 
of a two-feet iron square ; the bones were large. In 
a coffin which was carefully opened, the bones lay 
in re^'ular order ; to the skull was attached a larcre 
lock of flowing hair, neatly folded up, and bound 
together with a tortoise-shell comb. I washed the 
hair from the clods of the valley, which appeared as 
fresh and beautiful as on the day when death laid 
low the head ; with pious care I then softly placed 
the bones and hair in a coffin, there it will rest till 
earth and sea give up the dead that are in them. 
The comb when cleaned looked as fair as new, and 
it hung by our desk for years, but lately disappeared. 
This house and its uses will probably be spoken of as 
long as New-York endures — here was held the last 
Orthodox yearly meeting, according to the primitive 
pinciples of brotherly love, before the devil had 
thrown among them fire-brands, arrows and death. 

It is a coincidence worth noticing, that I made the 
nails which were used in the erection of this building ; 



I 



GRANT THORBURN. 139 

from this, and many other pleasing recollections, the 
stone and dust about it are precious in my eyes. So, by 
way of ' salvo ' to my feelings, I have purchased all the 
timbers, including the roof, with which I intend (if 
spared) to make me a building in the Cove, wherein 
to dwell, if so Providence orders, till they place m.e 
in my own coffin. While I sit under the six pillars 
that supported the gallery, which I intend to place 
in front of the dwellii]g, I can live (in imagination) 
my hfe over again, and commune with the spirits of 
the v.enerated dead. As most of the old buildings in 
the neighborhood are now levelling to the dust, per- 
haps vvhen I have leisure I will give you a few remi- 
niscences of them and some of their inhabitants. 



AneoiTote of George Tliompsoii the Abolitionist. 



•'And hopest thou hence unscath'd to go, 
"No! by St. Bride of Bothwell, No!" 



In January, 1S34, I was sojourning in Dalkeith, 
my native village, in Scotland. A few days previous 
to my arrival, this man, who had been turning the 
question upside down, was there also. He had as- 
serted among other things equally true, in a public 



140 REMINISCENCES OF 

lecture, that a colored person was never permitted 
to sit down at the same communion-table with the 
whites. I denied the charge by saying that I had 
seen whites and blacks sit at the same table in the 
Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian churches, and add- 
ed, that if he came there to lecture while 1 was in 
the place, and made such an assertion, I would con- 
tradict him in public. In a few days he advertised 
another lecture. He was then in Edinburgh; a gen- 
tleman, a resident in Dalkeith, invited him with a 
few of his Edinburgh friends, together with a num- 
ber of clergymen and gentlemen from the neigh- 
boring parishes, to a dinner at his house, on the day 
that the lecture was to be held at night. I also was 
invited, and went. I think twenty-five sat round 
the table. I asked Mr. T. if he had made the above 
assertion. He said he had,, because he was so in- 
formed. I told him he had been misinformed in 
this, as well as in many other very important points 
concerning slavery in America, &;c. Szc. He said he 
certainly would not again make the assertion, as he 
was now satisfied it was incorrect. 

From 3 p. m. till 7 (time of lecture) the subject 
of slavery was the burden of our song." I had to 
defend myself against the fires of twenty frigates, 
whose upper works were well stored with subtile 
learning and the logic of the schools. I told them 
that their great zeal in the cause was no evidence of 
their being right ; that Paul was as full of zeal as 
any of them, when he was hauling men and women 



GRANT THORBURN. 141 

to tlie flames of martrydom. I told them that 
slavery was first introduced into these States 
under the British government; that when the United 
States had gained their independence they found 
themselves saddled with this curse, which had been 
entailed by the Defenders of the Faith, the Most 
Sacred Majesties and the Most Christian Majesties 
of Europe; that the people in America most gladly 
would get clear of them if they knew how; but for 
my own part I could not see in what manner it can 
be accomplished, except they do as the philanthro- 
pic kings (white slave-drivers) in Europe do ; that is, 
go to war, and sell them from one petty tyrant to 
another, to be shot at for twenty-five pounds per 
head, as the Defenders of the Faith and lords spirit- 
ual and temporal of London did with the Hessian 
soldiers in America, in the war of the Revolution. 
But said I, gentlemen, why waste your energies 
and expend all your philanthropy on slaves at a dis- 
tance ; why not reserve a portion to pour on the 
heads and hearts of your own white slaves in Bri- 
tain ] the black slaves in America do less work, are 
better fed, better clothed, have better lodgings, and 
better beds than the white slaves in the mines of 
Cornwall, or the millions of slaves about Leeds, Bir- 
mingham, Manchester, &c. To be sure, said I, you 
don't sell your white male slaves in the street, but 
you allow (it's the law of the land) any drunken 
vagabond to put a rope round the waist or neck of 
his white slave of a wife, and sell her in Smithfield 



142 REMINISCENCES OF 

market, right under the windows of the Defender of 
the Faith, and the lords spiritual — (Bishops — pull 
the beam from your own eyes, — perhaps not one of 
you has had your foot from off the island in which 
you were born. Any lazy, unprincipled wanderer, 
wishing to make a gain of you, comes with a fright- 
ful story and a budget of lies; you receive and be- 
lieve him. Said I, gentlemen, the first principle in 
nature is self-iyterest ; is it a credible thing with you 
that a planter would pay five hundred dollars for a 
good servant, and abuse him in the manner repre- 
sented. Which of you, haying paid one hundred 
guineas for a hunter, a racer, a coach, or a good 
farming horse, will begin to torment and abuse him % 
But said I, gentlemen, you know, and I know, that 
your favorite horses are better fed, and live in more 
comfortable dwellings than the servants and cotters 
on your lands. Many of your laborers are employed 
on branches of your manufactories that in a few 
years will poison both soul and body ; some I have 
seen with red eyes and green hair ; the eyes affected 
by the fires to which they were exposed, and the hair 
turned green by the brass works. Children of three 
years enter some of the manufactories, where they 
drag out a miserable existence of fifty, when the 
grave-digo^er finishes the concern. Many, very many 
of these miserable beings never enter a school, and 
rarely see a church ; they grow up without morals, 
without religion, without shame, and bring forth 
slaves like themselves, to tread in the same path of 



GRANT THORBURN. 143 

misery. In Manchester, Birmingham, &c. a great 
proportion of the laboring class and mechanics lodge 
in cellars, damp and dark, operating as hot-beds of 
infection ; so that the poor in these places are sel- 
dom without a plague, created by their filth and po- 
verty. Now, said I, gentlemen, you know that these 
are facts, and many more might be added. Begin at 
home, take care of your white slaves, and we will 
take care of our blacks without your help. 

I gave him my address, but I never saw him in 
America. 



On the Use of Tobacco. 

BEING INCOHERENT, ABSTRACT AND UNCONNECTED IDEAS, FLOATING IN THE 
BRAIN, WHILE THE SMOKE IS CURLING FROM THE FIFE. 

" This Indian weed, now withcr'd quite, 
Though green at noon, cut down at night, 
Slio-.vs thy decay — 
All flesh is hay, Cgrass,) 
Thus think, and smoke tobacco : 

"And when the smoke ascends on high, 
Then thou behold'st the vanity 
Of worldly stuff, 
Gone with a puff: 
Thus think, and smoke tobacco." 

Now, what do you think of this, you Anti-Nar co- 
tic and Broken-Pipe Association'? The above two 
stanzas are only part of a very long and very orthodox 
poem, extracted from Kalph Erskine's gospel sonnets, 



14^ KEBIINISCENCES OF 

entitled, " Tobacco Spiritualized,''^ and published in 
Edinburgh, about the middle of the last century, with 
a number of recommendations. Now, this same 
worthy divine used to compose his best sermons with 
a long pipe in his mouth, his person propped upright 
in an arm-chair, his left lesr resting^ on a bunch of 
Scotch heather, with his face turned upwards, watch- 
ing the wreaths of smoke ascend on high. It was 
then that the young ideas shot up from the heart to 
the head. He would take his stand on a hill-side, 
with the sky for a canopy, and preach tw/) hours on 
a stretch to an audience of more than five thousand, 
without a note to mar his eloquence, nor a written 
sermon within a mile of him. But now we have a 
set of simple men, the sons of silly women — readers, 
not preachers of the Gospel — who fulminate their 
bulls or paper proclamations against this powerful 
weed. It is well these self-tonceited mortals neither 
possess the spirit nor the power of pope Pius the 
Seventh ; otherwise our own and the heads of our 
pipes might be flying in the air, like the light shell 
of a Wethers field onion. Have these men ever read 
of Sir Walter Raleigh, whose servant mistook the 
fames of the pipe for the smoke of a volcano issuing 
from the throat of his master ] Have they never read 
of Sir Isaac Newton, who mistook the fore finger on 
the right hand of his mistress for the stopper of his 
pipe, as he blew the smoke at the moon, where his 
head had gone before 1 It is highly probable, had it 
not been for the ascending smoke, and for the con- 



GRANT THOEBURN. 145 

templations tliat therefrom ensued, we never would 
have heard of the Newtonian system, nor of the whole 
arcana of lunar observations. I think it is a fact be- 
yond all controversy, that the good, the wise and the 
great, in all ages have been profound smokers. Co- 
lumbus, Hudson and Americus were all welcomed 
to these shores by the ancient men of the tribes, 
bearing the calumet of peace. But observe : the long- 
pipes hold no communion with the whole fraternity 
of beardless cigar-smokers, whether they be male or 
female. It was on one of those mild, calm, clear 
moonlight nights, even as late as the eighth of De- 
cember, I was sitting on my stoop, enjoying the cheap 
and sober luxury of the pipe ; the river lay like a field 
of glass before me ; the full-orbed moon dancing in 
the gentle ripple of the ebbing tide ; the lights in the 
many upper and lower chambers in Eavenswood, 
where, three years ago, there stood only one solitary 
mansion; the laugh and the sound of mirth from the 
village of Yorkville, which, ten years ago, was one 
hard, uncompromised rock of stone ; the blaze from 
a thousand lamps on the Third Avenue, stretchincr 
even beyond the heights of Harleera, where but lately 
trod the heavy foot of the shaggy bear, the light moc- 
casin of the Indian and the warlike tramp of the 
Hessian soldier. Apropos : in repairing my old farm- 
house at the Cove, we found a cannon-ball which had 
been lodged between the clapboards and the lath and 
plaster. My next neighbor, now four-score and twa^ 
informs me that he lived in the same house he now 
13 



146 REMINISCENCES OF 

occupies, on the day of the battle of Flatbush ; that 
a party of the retreating American army crossed at 
Hurlgate ferry ; that a company of the British troops 
followed them to the river, but did not cross ; that 
the Americans fired several shots from York Island 
at the British ; and, as the soldiers gathered round 
this house, (now mine,) it being kept as a tavern at 
that time, the Americans directed their fire at the 
house, which got pretty well peppered ; that he had 
no doubt but that that was one of the balls, (I have no 
doubt either ; said ball weighs about twelve pounds ; 
I would not take a dollar a pound for it.) That night 
the British officers took up their head quarters in this 
same house. They did not think it worth while to 
follow up their victory, as, from the sample they had 
seen through the day, they thought they could conquer 
the Americans at their leisure. They accordingly invit- 
ed two or three dozen of the farmers' daughters from 
Newtown, Hallett's-Cove and the Dutch Hills, some 
of whose fathers were tories, and went willingly; the 
others, thinking, as matters stood, that it was better 
to coax the devil than to fight him, went, of course. 
Be this as it may, they kept up a regular tvar-dance with 
the Dutch lasses till daylight in the morning. Not 
so did Washington. He never slept in the lap of 
Delilah when his country's interest was at stake ; for, 
before the drowsy Britons (tired with war, wine and 
dancing) had rubbed their heavy eyelids, he was 
mustering his ragged army in the streets of Morris- 
town. 



GRANT THORBURN. 147 

But to return to the lights on Harlsem Heights, &c. 
The night was bland ; every thing spoke of life, peace 
and security. Thinks I to myself, how kind is the 
Giver of all good. He tempers the winds to the 
strength of the shorn lamb. How much this second 
summer mitigates the pressure. If the times are 
hard the season is softer than usual. Banks and 
safety-funds may evaporate in smoke ; but the bank 
of Providence will never suspend payment as long 
as wood grows and water runs. By-the-by, of the 
season. The signs of the times were all in favor of a 
mild winter. The scarcity of wild fruit, as acorns, 
&c. is a sign that seldom or never fails. He that 
hangs creation on his arm and feeds her at his board, 
when he sees a long winter at hand, provides an ex- 
tra store of fruit in the woods, to supply the needs of 
the raven, the squirrel and the sparrow. Of how 
much more value, in his sight, is man than many 
sparrows ! , Yet man, to whom he has given reason, 
power and faculties above the brutes that perish, is 
the only animal in all the creation of God that acts 
conrtary to nature, reason, religion and common sense. 
Were men in the day of prosperity to look out for 
adversity, in the hey-day of summer to lay up for 
winter; were there no drunkards nor foolish spend- 
thrift, our world would soon lose the slanderous nick- 
name of being miserable. Were one-tenth of the 
money that is spent in buying and tuning piano-fortes 
laid out in knitting-needles, and one-fourth part of 
the time that is lost in jingling the machine employed 



148 EEBIINISCENCES OF 

in making stockings, I verily believe the balance of 
trade would be in our favor, and you w^ould not see 
so much splendid misery walking up Broadway. I 
do not think you ever saw a piano in the habitation 
of the Friends, nor did you ever see any splendid mis- 
cry there. When I first saw New-York there was 
only one hosiery-store in the city; it was kept by 
Mr. Winslow, at number nine Wall-street ; it was a 
small concern, the profits of which were not sufiicieiit 
to keep soul and body together ; for the honest man 
was obliged to shave people with Castile-soap and 
rain-water to eke out a living. He was a barber by 
trade ; not the sort of shavers with which Wall-street 
swarms at this day. Then, there was not a broker 
in Wail-street. Mr. Winslow was an Englishman by 
birth, always neat and clean in his clothes and person 
— obliging, too, and shaving his customers himself, 
with a clean apron, white cotton stockings, shining 
black shoes and silver buckles, black velvet small- 
clothes, white muslin vest, clean shirt, (not check, 
like those of the hateful dandies of our day,) his few 
scattering hairs carefully gathered behind and tied 
with a neat black riband, his head powdered, like 
snow. In short, though a barber, he was a gentle- 
man of the old school ; not like the old, Avithered, 
would-be dandies of our day, with a black-hair wig 
on their head, and a large bunch of whiskers on each 
side of their mouth, as iDliite as the hind quarters of 
a Russian bear in the month of December. Nothing 
to me appears more hateful ; it looks like a flock of 
old sheep dressed in lambs' wool. 



GKANT THOREURN. 149 

Mr. Winslow's shop was in an old frame-building, 
next house-to the corner of Wall and Broad-streets, 
on the Broadway side, in Wall-street. The first 
house round the corner, in Broad-street, was an old 
Dutch frame-building, the gable-end fronting the 
street, with five or six steps to climb up to the stoop, 
having a broad board on each side of the door, form- 
ing a comfortable seat for eight persons. Here John 
Babb kept an iron cage manufactory, wherein to con- 
fine tame birds in a free country. It was from this 
stoop that general Hamilton addressed the sovereign 
people, assembled in front of the old City-hall, in 
1795, to consider on, dispose of, and discuss the mer- 
its of the famous British treaty, whose fate was then 
pending before Congress. His powerful arguments 
and eloquent language inflamed their plebeian souls ; 
they cut short his speech, forced him from the stoop, 
and dragged him through the gutter. Said I to my- 
self, and this is all the thanks you have got for fight- 
ing along side of Washington for the liberty of con- 
science and the freedom of speech. It was then pro- 
posed and carried by acclamation, to burn the treaty, 
So the hod-men and cartmen, the fish-men and clam- 
men, the ash-men and water-men, adjourned to the 
Bowling-green and set fire to the treaty, while the 
Irishmen beat the " White Boys' March'' and the 
Frenchmen sang "-Dansons la Carmagnole.^' A large 
buttonwood-tree stood at the corner of Broad and 
Wall-streets at that tim.e. Not having seen a meet- 
ing of the sovereign people in a free country, I was 
13* 



150 REMINISCENCES OF 

curious to mark how matters were managed. Ac- 
cordingly I got some one to help me up among the 
branches, where I could see and be out of harm's 
way. 

But to return to the buttonwood-tree. I verily 
believe it had stood there since the days of Gover- 
nour Von Twiller. On the opposite corner, where 
Burtsell keeps his blank-books, there stood the only 
watch-house then in New-York. Next to the watch- 
house, in Broad-street, was the residence of the wor- 
thy and venerable Doctor Anthon. Lower down 
dwelt Conrad W. Ham, who, for crackers, cakes oly- 
cooken, was second to none, (excepting Nicholas 
Bogart.) On the opposite side Vv'as the house of Al- 
derman John Nitchie. These three were the last of the 
Mohicans, and with them may be said to have per- 
ished the last of the Dutch dynasty in Broad-street. 
Under this tree, on a warm afternoon or evening, I 
often listened to the jokes, tales and mirth of these 
ancient neighbors, as they smoked tlieir pipes and 
spoke of other times. But this tree is dead, plucked 
up by the roots, destroyed by the ruthless hand of im- 
provement. It might have stood; there was room 
enougli and to spare on the pavement ; but they dug 
a pit linder its roots, wherein to stow Yankee rum and 
Jamaica spirits. I passed just as they had turned up its 
roots to the sun: it was in the month of May; the 
tree was in full leaf; there it lay, with its beautiful 
branches wallowing in the gutter. I thought it was 
adding insult to murder to have a tree cut down at this 



GRANT THORBURN. 151 

season of the year ; so I wished a curse on every 
rum-cask and barrel that might supplant its place, 
hoping the hoops might burst and the rum scald the 
hearts of the worms instead of the livers of men. 

But to return to the system of stocking-knitting. 
I verily believe that if all the women in town and in 
the country were to commence knitting, before seven 
months the balance of trade would be in our favor. 
At present it is sadly the reverse : bills on London 
fifteen per cent, above par. Now, I think the sus- 
pension of stocking-knitting lies deep at the root of 
this evil. In the good old days when Washington 
was president, his lady was not too proud to knit 
stockings for her general. Then we had only one 
hosiery-store ; now we have upwards of two thousand 
stocking-shops. Then the mother and girls knit 
stockings for all the family ; now it is computed that 
two millions of dollai's are sent to Europe every 
year to clothe the feet and ancle-bones of the New- 
Yorkers alone. This one article is sufficient of itself 
to kick both the beam and the balance of trade in 
our faces. Then our flour went to Europe by the 
hundred thousand barrels per annum; now we beg 
fi-om the hungry Hessian a bushel of wheat or a 
chaldron of rye. You know that whether they are 
right or wrong, my head and my pen are always 
ready to defend the weaker sex. I speak not to tiieir 
blame ; it is that greatest of all tyrants, Fashion, that 
has driven industry from the door. I wish them to 
look back on the days of unsophisticated employ- 



152 REMINISCENCES OF 

ment ; for they are never happy (those clear sisters) 
except their feet, their hands, or their tongues are 
in motion. Neither would we see so many gray- 
headed spinsters wearing foreign hair ; for those cold^ 
calculating bachelors, who reckon every thing by dol- 
lars and cents, would find it more profitable to take 
to themselves wives who could mend their stockings, 
patch their coats and put the apple in the heart of a 
dumpling, than to live in a state of single unhappi- 
ness. 

In those days of which I speak, we had few lawyers, 
for the people lived in peace with one another ; we 
had few deaths by consumption, for the women wore 
white woi^ted stockings in winter, instead of French 
silk ; no foreign cooks nor French confectioners, as 
the eatables and drinkables at feasts, marriages and 
New-years' rejoicings were manufactured at home. 



Reminiscences of Trinity Church. 

*' The story of thy better deeds engrav'd 
"On Fame's unmouldering pillar." 

The members of the first Protestant Episcopal 
Church first held stated religious services in this 
city in a chapel erected in the fort, which stood near 
the present Battery. In this place, under the Dutch 
administration, the service of the church of Holland 



GRANT THORBITRN. 153 

I 

had been performed. On the surrender of the co- 
lony to the British in 1664, the service of the church 
I of England was of course introduced. The congre- 
( gation, however, increasing. Trinity Church was 
! founded in 1696, in the reign of WilHam and Maiy. 
I The rector, the Rev. William Vesey, afterwards and 
for many years the commissary of the Bishop of 
London, first performed divine service in this church, 
j on the sixth of February, 1697. It was originally a 
small square edifice, and was enlarged in the east 
; end in 1735, and again on the north and south sides 
in 1737. Its length was then, including the tower 
and chancel, one hundred and forty-six feet ; its 
width seventy-two feet, and the steeple one hundred 
and eighty feet high. This steeple was struck by 
lightning in the summer of 1762 ; but little damage 
was done. 

On the twenty-first of September, 1776, in the 
memorable fire which laid waste so great a portion 
'of the city, this venerable and majestic edifice was 
i destroyed. It lay in ruins during the remainder of 
the revolutionary war, and was replaced by the 
] Btructure just demolished. This edifice was conse- 
I crated by the Right Rev. Bishop Provost, in 1791. 

Trinity Church is the parish church of the parish 
of that name, which contains also St. Paul's, erected 
in 1766, and St. John's, erected in 1807. St- 
; George's Church was also formerly a chapel. Trinity 
Parish is under the pastoral charge of a rector and 
three assistant ministers. 
It- 



154 REMINISCENCES OF 

Notwithstanding the antiquity of this parish, the 
present rector is only the eighth that has held that 
office. 

Among the communion-plate belonging to this 
parish, are several articles presented by William and 
Mary, and Queen Anne ; and others with the initials 
G. R., but from which of the first three Georges I 
have not learned — probably some from each. There 
are also a few articles from private donors, and 
among these, two plates presented by a lady on 
Christmas-day, 1718. 

But old Trinity is gone ! With her and with the 
hand-writings on her walls my earliest and fondest 
associations are blended ; but she will rise more glo- 
rious than before, an emblem of the resurrection of 
thousands who worshipped there, and whose bones 
lie mouldering in her clay. From the best informa- 
tion I am able to obtain, upwards of four hundred 
thousand have been deposited in the Trinity churcl; 
burying-ground since its first erection in 1697. 

The following touching lines, cut from the New- 
York American, will make an excellent finish to my 
story. 

TRINITY CHURCH. 

Farewell ! farewell ! they're falling fast. 

Pillar, and arch, and arcliitrave ; 
Yon aged pile, to me the last 
Sole record of the by-gone past, 

Is speeding to its grave : 
And thoughts from memory's fountain flow, 

(As one by one, like wedded hearts, 

Each rude and mouldering stone departs,) , 



GRANT THORBURN. 155 

Of boyhood's happiness and wo,— 

Its sunshine, and its shade : 
And though each ray of early gladness 
Comes mingled with the hues of sadness, 

I would not bid them fade; 
They come, as come the stars at night, — 
Like fountains gushing into light — 
And close around my heart they twine, 
Like ivy round the mountain-pine ! 
Yes, they are gone — the sunlight smiles 
All day upon its foot-worn aisles, 
Those foot- worn aisles ! where oft have trod 
The humble worshippers of God, 
In times lon^: past, when Freedom first 
From all the land in glory burst ! 
The heroic few ! from him whose sword 

Was wielded in his country's cause. 
To him who battled wath his word, 
The bold expounder of her laws ! 
And they are gone — gone like the lone 

Forgotten echoes of their tread; 
And from their niches now are gone 

The sculptured records of the dead] 
As now I gaze, my heart is stirrM 
With music of another sphere ! 
A low, sweet chime, Avhich once was heard, 
Comes like the note of some wild bird 

Upon my listening ear ; — 
Recalling many a happy hour. 
Reviving many a wither'd flower, 
Whose bloom and beauty long have laid 
Within my sad heart's silent shade : 
Life's morning flowers I that bud and blow. 

And wither, ere the sun hath kiss'd 
The dew drops from their breasts of snow, 
Or dried the landscape's veil of mist ! 



156 KEBIINISCENCES OF 

Yes f •when that sweetly- mingled chime 
Stole on my ear in boyhood's time, 
My glad heart drank the thrilling joy, 

Undreaming of its future pains ; — 
As spell- bound as the Theban boy 

List'ning to Memnon's fabled strains 1 
Farewell, old fane ! and though unsung 

By bards thy many glories fell, 
Though babbling fame hath never rung 

Thy praises on his echoing bell — 
Who that hath seen, can e'er forget 

Thy gray old spire ?— who that hath kneU 
Within thy sacred aisles, nor felt 
Religion's self grow sweet yet ? 
Yes! though the decking hand of Time 

Glory to Greece's fanes hath given. 
That, from her old heroic clime 

Point proudly to their native heaven 5 
Though Rome hath many a ruin'd pile 

To speak the glory of her land, 
And fair, by Egypt's sacred Nile, 

Her mould'ring monuments may stand, — 
The joy that swells the gazer's heart, 
The pride that sparkles in his eye. 
When pondering on these piles, where ArS 

In crumbling majesty doth lie. 
Ne'er blended with them keener joy. 
Than mine, when but a thoughtless boy 
I gazed with awe-struck, wond'ring eye, 
On thy old spire, my Trinity ? 
And thou shall Jive like words of truth, — 
Like golden monuments of youth — 
As on thelake's unrippled bieast 
The miiTor'd mountain lies at rcst^ 
So thou Shalt lie, till life depart, 
Mirror'd for ages upon my hesi-i 



^RANT THORBURN, 157 



The Crrave in the Orchard. 



'' The xlust we tread on, once lived."— JWerocy. 

It was about five o'clock on a gray, calm, sober- 
looking afternoon, in the month of November last 
that I had been searching the hill and the vale, the 
woods and the meadows, and gathering up the roots 
and the seeds of some of our beautiful native plants, 
whose flowers had long since wasted their sweets 
on the desert air. Returning about gloaming, my 
way led through an orchard of venerable apple and 
pear trees, which, from their mouldering branches 
and trunks crumbling into dust, I thought might date 
their age from the day that the first red man turned 
his back on the east and commenced his march west- 
ward. In all probability they were planted by George 
Jansen de Rapelje. This Mr. Rapelje was a French 
Protestant. He settled with his family in our neigh- 
borhood as early as 1625. His is said to be the first 
white family that settled on Long Island, and his 
v/ife's daughter the first white child born there. Be 
this as it may, from this man sprang the whole gene- 
ration of men, women and children known in the 
New- York Directory till this day by the names of 
Rapalje, Rapaljo, Rapelye and Rapelje. Shame on 
those who first altered the spelling ! Their ancestor 
was a worthy old gentleman: his sons should have 
stuck to the letters of his name ; but the de is nov/ 
U 



158 REMINISCENCES 01 

even blotted out from the memory of Longvvorth. 
But to return to the orchard. I lingered about this 
spot without knowing why. Choice fruits were 
bending to my grasp ; they tempted me not. The 
stillness of death was there. The fall of a leaf and 
the noise of my own breathing alone sounded in my 
ear. The feeble flutter of the birds, as one by one 
they sank to rest ; the long dead and decaying grass 
bending its head to the earth from whence it so 
lately sprung; the dead and the dying leaves be- 
sprinkling the herbs, themselves twice dead and 
plucked up by the roots — all these made the place 
look like the very land of forgetfulness itself. 

Plodding my way through this valley of the shadow 
of death, I came to a spot where the grass grew 
more green, and the stramonium, the hemlock and 
other noxious weeds grew taller and more rank than 
their fellows. While treading them down, I observed 
a number of rough unpolished stones standing about 
six feet, from west to east, as if they had been ^ 
placed one at the head and the other at the foot of aj 
grave. On further search, I found I was standing on I 
the bones of those who planted the trees whose 
branches overshadowed my head. There were no 
hillocks, for time and the pelting storm had levelled 
the graves with the fallow ground. The stones, too, 
had sunk by their own gravity, many of them half, 
and some of them deeper, in their native soil ; they 
•were rough as when they came from the bed of the 
blasted rock. Names and dates there were none. 



GRANT THOREUEN. 159 

Letters and words in the Dutch language had been 
put on with white paint, but the rain descended and 
the winds blew on their face for a hundred years, 
till it left not a wreck behind. 

We have a living oracle among our neighbors — 
an old man, the days of whose pilgrimage have 
numbered four score years and ten. To him I ap- 
plied for a record of the dead. He remembered the 
spot as being sf place of burial when he was only 
seven years of age ; and many a gloomy winter 
evening, when the hoar-frost and tempest were 

I rustling among the branches, has he approached the 
place with fear and trembling ; for, said he, in those 
days witches, ghosts and apparitions had not ceased 
from out of the land. He then with the garrulity of 
old age, ever fond of recounting the scenes of youth, 
commenced a catalogue of French, Indian and negro 

j murders ; which, in respect to the feelings of the 
good old man, I heard to an end with seeming 
patience ; though I must confess it wasted the hours 
of three sittings. I will give you nearly in his own 
words the last of his ghost stories, as the spot where 
the persons were murdered is near that where I am 
now writing. 

** The schools in those days," said the old man, 
*' were few and far between. The burying-ground 
lay in my route to the school I attended. One day, 
in the winter of 1738, when I was nine years old, I 
was traversing this road, which was then in a bad 
condition. It was quite dark when I came to the 



160 REMINISCENCES OF 

place of graves. I saw, or fancied I saw, sitting o: 
a new-made grave, the father, mother and three 
children of a neighboring family, which had been 
murdered by their black servant a few weeks before, 
and all buried in that same grave. The master and 
mistress had been kind to their servants, as the Dutch 
everywhere are to this day. The wife of the murderer 
was cook and servant of all work in the family, and, 
prompted by the devil, she had told her husband, 
that if he would only kill the whole family, then the 
farm and every thing on the place would be his 
own. Long and sorely was he beset before she 
brought him to the point. He at last accomplished 
the atrocious deed while his victims were asleep. 
As he entered the kitchen, his wife asked — * Are 
they all dead]' 'All dead but Harry. I can't kill 
Harry,' replied the negro. Now Harry was the 
youngest child, a fine boy, about five years old. He 
had wound himself round the affections of black Sam, 
and they used to go nutting, crabbing and fishing 
together. Often while Sam was working in the 
fields, Hai*ry would bring him his dinner and his 
mug of cider. * I can't kill Harry,' said he. * Fool ! 
Fool !' exclaimed his wife. * Then better had you 
killed none of them ; for now Harry will tell all, 
and you will be hanged.' 

*'At this suggestion the guilty man gasped, and 
stood like one paralyzed. His teeth chattered, his 
knees smote each other, and scarcely could he sustain 
his shaking frame as he leaned on the bloody j_axe 



GRANT THORBURN. 161 

which had been the instrument of his crime. Ee- 
morse for the execrable deed was already gnawing 
at his heart-strings ; and his horror at the idea of 
being compelled to murder his favorite Harry, his 
little playmate and companion, the lightener of his 
toils, was more than his iron limbs could support. 

" ' Go up, you shivering coward, and finish the 
job you have begun,' said the female fiend ; ' go up, 
or I will call the neighbors and have you hanged at 
once.' 

" Thus threatened, the wretch completed his atro- 
cities by sacrificing little Harry with the rest. He 
then walked forth into the fields with the mark of 
Cain on his forehead. It was now the break of day. 
A wagon was heard rattling over the road — a rare 
occurrence when neighbors lived seven miles apart. 
It stopped opposite the house. Black Sam was not 
far distant, staggering along, and looking on the 
ground like a man who had lost his wits. 

" ' Hullo ! darkie, what are you looking at V was 
the salutation of the driver. 

'* Sam lifted his clumsy feet from the ground as if 
he had been struck by a rifle-ball. His face gleamed 
like the face of a demon, and the white of his eyes 
expanded till it seemed like the white circle on the 
soldier's target. And well might the poor wretch 
start and shudder, for the terrors of a guilty con- 
science had driven him from his bed, and he was 
haggard alike with remorse and with want of sleep, 

" The wagoner being informed that the family 
14* 



162 REMINISCENCES OF 

had not risen, drove from the door and proceeded to 
Hallett's Cove, a distance of about a mile. All the 
way he could not forbear pondering upon the cause 
of Black Sam's singular demeanor and horrible looks. 
When he arrived at the store he sat down, but his 
thoughts still turned to this subject, and absorbed his 
attention and chained his tongue. A noise startled 
him — the door opened — and in walked the wife of 
Black Sam, the tigress who had first dxcited him to 
the sanguinary deed. Her first exclamation was — 
' Oh dear ! they have killed master and missus and 
the three children with an axe, and Sam and I have 
alone escaped.' 

" The wagoner rose, and with the impulsiveness 
of a strong and sudden conviction, replied, ' Yes, you 
black wretch, and you and your husband are the 
murderers.' 

*' In three minutes the guilty creature, taken by 
surprise, confessed the crime. That same wagoner 
carried her and Sam in his cart to Hempstead jail ; 
and before the remains of the slaughtered family 
were consigned to the grave in the orchard, the mise- 
rable pair had met the penalty of their crime. The 
man was hung and the woman burned to death." 

Now this is no fiction, but a simple tale of truth. 
Often when the moon is climbing our eastern hills, 
and the shadows of night are closing around, do I 
ramble to this solitary spot and hold converse with 
the spirits of the venerated dead. And why not 1 
Why may it not be that there are ministering angels 



GRANT THOREURN. 163 

sent forth to shed a gracious influence around the 
children of men 1 I have no fear of the visits of 
such disembodied agents. I have ahnost wished 
that one of the long-departed, whose bones are 
mouldering beneath my feet, would lift for me the 
veil and grant me a glimpse of the mysteries be- 
hind it. 

But we have Moses and the prophets, and let us 
be thankful for what we have. Yet a little while, 
and the things unknown shall be revealed to us, and 
we shall be as wise as those who have gone before. 



The liowell Oft'ering. 

" Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend, 
" And genius and beanly in harmony blend ; 
"The graces of form shall awake pure desire, 
" And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire." 

A few months since I accidentally picked up the 
May and June numbers of this modest little one- 
sheet periodical. They were the first I had seen or 
heard of them — and having "finished them at one 
sitting," (as the alderman says,) I lit ray pipe and 
walked out among the cherry-trees, to ruminate 
upon what I had read, as my thoughts are always 
quickest when the smoke is curling from my pipe 
and no one near me ; and while I sat ruminating, 
my thoughts ran ahead with the following abstract, 
incoherent, unconnected ideas : If one of those fac- 



164 REMINISCENCES OF 

tory girls were to pass now, I would give her that 
pot, filled with the lilies of the valley, for a vignette 
to their book ! The lily of the valley was selected 
by its Maker as the emblem of beauty and modesty — 
when He said, (passing the sun-flower, carnation, 
and dahlia,) Behold the lily of the valley ! Solo- 
mon in all his glory, and the queen of Sheba by his 
side, with her crown, tinsel, bombast and gingle, 
was not arrayed like one of these lilies ! So is this 
book. Sixteen stories for May and fourteen for June ! 
all finished — and told in the beautiful, modest, and 
truth-speaking language of nature ! No French or 
Latin disguising words which the writer himself is 
ashamed of — nothing but amusing, entertaining and 
instructive essays on matters and things, told with 
all the simplicity of truth. Nothing short of this could 
be expected from the factory girls of Lowell ; for it's 
a sound maxim of physiology, that the Jace is the in- 
dex of the mind. I have seen these girls in the mills 
and in their walks, and I have seen hundreds of the 
most fashionable women, in full dress, at assemblies 
and parties in Britain, but I never saw so many pret- 
ty faces on the same number of women as I have 
seen at a gathering of the factory girls in Lowell. 
Therefore, one may expect that the effusions of their 
minds will be equally beautiful. 

I wondered what a Turk (who says the women 
have no souls) would think, were he to read this 
book. For my own part, I verily believe that there 
is more sound sense in this Lowell Offering than you 



GRANT TirORBURN. 165 

will find in the whole book of the Alkoran, or in all 
the ukases of the Bashaws with three tails ! I won- 
der what those Turks who infest the Astor-house, 
with beards as long as a Russian bear, would say. 
They, too, say the women have no souls, and think 
themselves the very lords of creation ; but take any 
of those chaps and shut them up in a room, with pen, 
ink and paper, and let them have nothing to eat or 
drink till they produce an essay equal to the poorest 
of those in the Offering, and I really believe they 
would die with hunger before they accomplished 
their task. And T wonder what Madam TroUope and 
Parson Fiedler would say. 

I remember standing near one of the factories 
some years ago, and seeing the girls walk from the 
gate at dinner-hour, two and two, like a procession, 
with their handsome, happy faces, and clean, neat 
dresses, neatly put on ; and I wished that Madam 
Trollope and her Fiedler were there — each having 
a score or two of the pin and factory girls from Lon- 
don, Manchester and Birmingham at their backs — 
just by way of contrast. Whatever they might say, I 
am sure they would think that New England had 
not degenerated. 

Every Yankee ought to be proud of this book, and 
subscribe for it. 



166 REMINISCENCES OF 

Tales of tlie Prison— Sii^far-liouse— Liberty-street : 

OR, ANECDOTES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

" Here many pine in want, and duneeon's gloom ; 
" Shut from tiie common air, and common use 
'•Of their own limbs." — Thomson. 

When ages shall have mingled with those which 
have gone before the flood, the spot on which stood 
this prison will be sought for with more than anti- 
quarian interest. It was founded in 1689, and occu- 
pied as a sugar-refining manufactory till 1776, when 
Lord Howe converted it into a place of confinement 
for the American prisoners. At the conclusion of the 
war for Independence, the business of sugar refining 
was resumed, and continued till 1839 or '40, when 
it was levelled to the ground to make way for a 
block of buildings wherein to stow Yankee rum and 
New Orleans molasses. Pity it ever was demolished. 
With reasonable care it might have stood a thousand 
years, a monument to all generations of the pains, 
penalties, sufferings and deaths their fathers met in 
procuring the blessings they now inherit. It stood 
on the southeast corner and adjoining the graveyard 
around the Middle Dutch Church, said church being 
now bounded by Liberty, Nassau and Cedar-streets. 
But, as it is said, this church is soon to become a 
post-office. The levelling spirit of the day is rooting 
up and destroying every landmark and vestige of an- 
tiquity about the city, and it is probable that in the 
year two thousand and twenty-one there will not 



GRANT THORBURN. 167 

be found a man in New-York who can point out the 
site whereon stood a prison whose history is so feel- 
ingly connected with our revolutionary traditions. 

On the IStli of June, 1794, I came to reside in 
Liberty-street, where, between Nassau-street and 
Broadway I dwelt forty years. As the events record - 

; ed in this history had but recently transpired, I had 
frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with 

I the men who had been actors in the scenes. Some 
of the anecdotes I heard from the lips of Gen. Alex- 
ander Hamilton, Gen. Morgan Lewis, Col. Richard 
Varick, the venerable John Pintard, and other revo- 
lutionary worthies, then in the prime of life, but now 
all numbered with the dead. 

Till within a few years past, there stood in Liberty- 
street a dark stone building, grown gray and rusty 
with age, with small, deep windows, exhibiting a 
dungeon-like aspect, and transporting the memory 
to scenes of former days, when the revolution poured 
its desolating waves over the fairest portion of our 
country. It was five stories high ; and each story was 
divided into two dreary apartments, with ceilings so 
low, and the light from the windows so dim, that a 
stranger would readily take the place for a jail. On 
the stones in the walls, and on many of the bricks 
under the office-windows, were still to be seen initials 
and ancient dates, as if done with a penknife or nail ; 
this was the work of many of the American prisoners, 
who adopted this, among other means, to while 
?iway their weeks and years of long monotonous con- 



168 REMINISCENCES OF 

finement. There is a strong jail-like door opening 
on Liberty-street, and another on the southeast, de- 
scending into a dismal cellar, scarcely allowing the 
mid-day sun to peep through its window-gratings. 
When I first saw this building — some fifty years 
ago — there was a walk, nearly broad enough for a 
cart to travel round it; but, of late years, a wing has 
been added to the northwest end, which shuts up 
this walk, where, for many long days and nights, two 
British or Hessian soldiers walked their weary 
rounds, guarding the American prisoners. For thir- 
ty years after I settled in Liberty-street this house 
was often visited by one and another of those war- 
worn veterans — men of whom the present political 
worldlings are not worthy. I often heard them re- 
peat the story of their sufferings and sorrows, but 
always with grateful acknowledgments to Him who 
guides the destinies of men as well as of nations. 

One morning, when returning from the old Fly- 
market at the foot of Maiden-lane, I noticed two of 
those old soldiers in the Sugarhouse-yard ; they had 
only three legs between them — one having a wooden 
leg. I stopped a moment to listen to their conversa- 
tion, and as they were slowly moving from the yard, 
said I to them — 

" Gentlemen, do either of you remember this 
building V 

" Aye, indeed ; I shall never forget it," replied he 
of the one leg. ** For twelve months that dark hole,'* 
pointing to the cellar, " was my only home. And at . 



GRANT THOKBURN. 169 

that door I saw the corpse of my brother thrown into 
the dead-cart among a heap of others who had died 
in the night previous of the jail-fever. While the 
fever was raging, we were let out in companies of 
twenty, for half-an-hour at a time, to breathe the 
fresh air ; and inside we were so crowded that we 
divided our number into squads of six each. Number 
one stood ten minutes as close to the window as 
they could crowd to catch the cool air, and then step- 
ped back, when number two took their places; and 
so on. Seats we had none ; and our beds were but 
straw on the floor, with vermin intermixed. Arid 
there," continued he, pointing with his cane to a 
brick in the wall, " is my kill-time work—* A. V. S. 
1777,' viz. Abraham Van Sickler — which I scratched 
with an old nail. When peace came, some learned the 
fate of their fathers and brothers from such initials." 

My house being near by, I asked them to step in 
and take a bite. In answer to my inquiry as to how 
he lost his leg, he related the following circumstance j 

** In 1777," said he, " I was quartered at Belle- 
•ville, N. J. with a part of the army under Col. Cort- 
landt. Gen. Howe had possession of New- York at 
the same time, and we every moment expected an 
attack from Henry Clinton. Delay made us less vigi- 
lant, and we were surprised, defeated, and many 
slain and made prisoners. We marched from Newark, 
crossing the Passaick and Hackensack rivers in boats. 
The road through the swamp was a ' corduroy,' that 
is, pine trees laid side by side." 
15 



170 REMINISCENCES OF 

[In September, 1795, I travelled this road, and 
found it in the same condition.] 

** We were confined," he continued, " in this Su- 
gar-house, with hundreds who had entered before 
us. At that time the Brick Meeting-house, the North 
Dutch Church, the Protestant Church in Pine- 
street, were used as jails for the prisoners ; while 
the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Cedar-street, 
now a house of merchandise, " was occupied as an 
hospital for the Hessian soldiers, and the Middle 
Dutch Church for a riding-school for their cavalry. 
I well remember it was on a Sabbath morning — as 
if in contempt of Him whose house they were dese- 
crating — that they first commenced their riding ope- 
rations in said church. On that same day a vessel 
from England arrived, laden with powder, ball, and 
other munitions of war. She dropped anchor in the 
East River, opposite the foot of Maiden-lane. The 
weather was warm, and a thunder-storm came on in 
the afternoon. The ship was struck by a thunder- 
bolt from heaven. Not a vestige of the crew, stores, 
or equipment was ever seen after that. The good 
whigs and Americans, all over the country, said that 
the God of battle had pointed that thunder-bolt. 

" We were crowded to excess," continued the old 
veteran ; ** our provisions bad, scanty and unwhole- 
some, and the fever raged like a pestilence. For 
many weeks the dead-cart visited us every morning, 
into which from eight to twelve corpses were thrown, 
piled up like sticks of wood, with the same clothes 



GRANT THORBUllN. 171 

they had worn for months, and in which they had 
died, and often before the body was cold. Thus, 
every day expecting death, I made up my mind to 
escape, or die in the attempt. The yard was sur- 
rounded by a close board-fence nine feet high. I in- 
formed my friend here of my intention, and he readi- 
ly agreed to follow my plan. The day previous, we 
placed an old barrel, which stood in the yard, against 
the fence, as if by accident. Seeing the barrel was 
not removed the next day, we resolved to make the 
attempt that afternoon. The fence we intended to 
scale was on the side of the yard nearest to the East 
River ; and our intentions were, if we succeeded in 
getting over, to make for the river, seize the first 
boat we could find, and push for Long Island. 

" Two sentries walked around the building day 
and night, always meeting and passing each other at 
the ends of the prison. They were only about one 
minute out of sight, and during this minute we 
mounted the barrel and cleared the fence. I drop- 
ped upon a stone and broke my leg, so that I lay 
still at the bottom of the fence outside. We were 
missed immediately, and pursued. They stopped a 
moment to examine my leg, and this saved my friend; 
for by the time they reached the water's edge at the 
foot of Maiden-lane, he was stepping on shore at 
Brooklyn, and thus got clear. I was carried into my 
old quarters, and rather thrown than laid on the 
floor, under a shower of curses. 

" Twenty-four hours elapsed ere I saw the Doctor, 



172 REMINISCENCES OF 

My leg by this time had become so much swollen 
that it could not be set. Mortification immediately 
commenced, and amj^utation soon followed. Thus, 
beins^ disabled from servinsf either friend or foe, I 
was liberated, through the influence of a distant re- 
lative, a royalist. And now I live as I can, on my 
pension, and with the help of my friends." 

In 1812, Judge Schuyler, of Belleville, showed me 
a musket ball which then lay imbedded in one of his 
inside window-shutters, which was lodged there on 
that fatal night, thirty-five years previous. 

Among the many who visited this prison forty 
years ago, I one day observed a tall, thin, but re- 
spectable-looking gentleman, on whose head was a 
cocked-hat — an article not entirely discarded in those 
days — and a few dozen snow-white hairs gathered 
behind and tied with a black ribband. On his arm 
hung — not a badge, or a cane, nor a dagger; but a 
handsome young lady, who I learned from him was 
his daughter, whom he had brought two hundred j 
miles to view the place of her father's sufferings. He 
walked erect, and had about him something of a mi- 
litary air. Being strangers, I asked them in ; and be- 
fore we parted I heard 

THE HISTORY OF THE PRISONER. 

" When the Americans," he began, " had posses- ; 
sion of Fort Washington, on the North River — it be- j 
ing the only post they held at that time on York :| 
Island — I belonged to a company of light infantry 



GRANT THORBURN. 173 

Stationed there on duty. The American army having 
retreated from New-York, Sir William Howe deter- 
mined to reduce that garrison to the subjection of 
the British, if possible. Our detachment at that time 
was short of provisions, and as General Washington 
was at Fort Lee, it was a difficult matter to supply 
I ourselves from the distance without the hazard of in- 
I terception from the enemy. There lived on the turn- 
1 pike, within a mile of our post, a Mr. J. B. This 
man kept a store well supplied with provisions and 
' groceries, and contrived to keep himself neutral, sell- 
[ ing to both parties ; but he was strongly suspected 
of favoring the British, by giving them information, 
&:c. Some of our officers resolved to satisfy them- 
selves ; and if they found their suspicions just, they 
thought it would be no harm to make a prize of his 
stores, especially as the troops were much in need 
of them. From prisoners, and clothes stripped from 
the slain, we had always a supply of British uniforms 
for officers and privates. Accordingly three of our 
officers put on the red coats and w^alked to friend 
B.'s, where they soon found that the color of their 
uniforms was a passport to his best affections and 
to his best wines. As the glass went round, his loyal 
ideas began to shoot forth in royal toasts and senti- 
ments. Our officers being now sure of their man, I 
was one of a party who went with wagons and every 
thing necessary to ease him of his stores, 

** On the following evening, that matters might 
pass quietly, we put on the British uniforms. Ar- 
15* 



174 REMINISCENCES OF 

riving at the house, we informed Mr. B. that the 
army were in want of all his store, but we had no 
time to make an inventory, being afraid we might 
be intercepted by the Americans ; but he must make 
out his bill from memory, carry it to the Commissary 
at New-York, and get his pay. The landlord looked 
rather serious at this wholesale mode of doing busi- 
ness, but, as the wagons were loading up, he found 
remonstrance would be in vain. In less than an hour 
his whole stock of eatables and drinkables was on 
the road to Fort Washington. By the direction we 
took, he suspected the trick, and alarmed the out- 
posts of the British army. In fifteen minutes we 
heard the sound of their horses' hoofs thundering 
along behind us; but they were too late, and we got 
in safe. He got his revenge, however ; for in three 
days thereafter our fortress was stormed by General 
Kniphausen on the notth, General Matthews and 
Lord Cornwallis on the east, and Lords Percy and 
Sterling on the south. So fierce and successful was 
the attack, that twenty-seven hundred of us were 
taken prisoners, and numbers of them, with myself, 
marched to New-York, and lodged in the Crown- 
street [now Liberty-street] Sugar-house. 

" It is impossible," he continued, " to describe the 
horrors of that prison. It was like a healthy man be- 
ing tied to a putrid carcass. I made several attempts 
to escape, but always failed, and at last began to 
yield to despair. I caught the jail-fever, and was 
nigh unto death. At this time I became acquainted 



GRANT THORBURN. 175 

witli a young man among the prisoners, the wretch- 
edness of whose lot tended by comparison to alle- 
viate my own. He was brave, intelhgent and kind. 
Many a long and weary night he sat by the side of 
my bed of straw, consoling my sorrows and beguil- 
ing the dreary hours with his interesting history. He 
was the only child of his wealthy and doting parents, 
and had received a liberal education ; but despite of 
their cries and tears he ran to the help of his coun- 
try against the mighty. He had never heard from his 
parents since the day he left their roof. They lay 
near to his heart, but there was one whose image 
was graven there as with the point of a diamond. 
He, too, had the fever in his turn; and I then, as 
much as in me lay, paid back to him my debt of gra- 
titude. * My friend,' he would say to me, ' if you sur- 
vive this deadly hole, promise me you will go to the 

town of H . Tell my parents, and Eliza, I pe- 

! rished here a captive, breathing the most fervent 
prayers for their happiness.' 1 tried to cheer him 
by hope, feeble as it was. * Tell me not,' he would 
add, * of the hopes of reunion ; there is only one 
world where the ties of affection will never break ; 
and there, through the merits of Him who was taken 
from prison into judgment, for our sins, I hope to 
meet them.' 

*' This crisis over, he began to revive, and in a few 
days was able to walk, by leaning on my arm. We 
were standing by one of the narrow windows, inhal- 
ing the fresh air, on a certain day, when we espied 



176 REMINISCENCES OF 

a young woman trying to gain admittance. After 
parleying for some time, and placing something in 
the hand of the sentinel, she was permitted to enter 
this dreary abode. She was like an angel among 
the dead. After gazing eagerly around for a mo- 
ment, she flew to the arms of her recognized lover, 
pale and altered as he was. It was Eliza. The scene 
was affecting in the extreme. And w^hile they wept, 
clasped in each others arms, the prisoners within, 
and even the iron-hearted Hessian at the door, caught 
the infection. She told him she received his letter, 
and informed his parents of its contents ; but not 
knowing how to return an answer with safety, she 
had travelled through perils by land and water to 
see her Henry. 

" This same Hessian sentinel had served us our 
rations for months past, and from long intimacy with 
the prisoners was almost considered a friend. Eliza, 
who made her home with a relative in the city, was 
daily admitted, by the management of this kind- 
hearted man ; and the small nourishing notions she 
brought in her pockets, together with the light of her 
countenance, which caused his to brighten whenever 
she appeared, wrought a cure as if by miracle. His 
parents arrived, but were not admitted inside. In a 
few days thereafter, however, by the help of an ounce 
or two of gold and the good feelings of our Hessian 
friend, a plan was concerted for meeting them. His 
turn of duty was from twelve till two o'clock that 
night. The signal, which was to lock and unlock a 



GRANT THORBURN. 177 

certain door twice, being given, Henry and myself 
slipped out, and crept on our hands and knees along 
the back wall of the Middle Dutch Church, meeting 
the parents and Eliza by the Scotch Church in Cedar- 
street. As quick as thought, we were on board a 
boat, with two men and four oars, on the North River. 
Henry pulled for love, I for life, and the men for a 
purse ; so that in thirty minutes after leaving the 
Sugar-house we stood on Jersey shore. 

*' In less than a month Eliza was rewarded for all 
her trials with the heart and hand of Henry. They 
now live not far from Elizabethtown, comfortable and 
happy, with a flock of olive-plants around their table. 
I spent a day and night at their house last week, re- 
counting our past sorrows and present joys." 

Thus the old man concluded ; simply adding that 
he himself now enjoyed a full share of earthly bless- 
ings, with a grateful heart to the Giver of all good. 

Now, friend Mackay, should you think these 
sketches will amuse your readers, they are at your 
service. I have more of them, which I may give you 
at a more convenient season. 

It is well to snatch from oblivion a spot so inte- 
resting in revolutionary tradition as was the Sugar- 
house prison in Liberty-street. Within fifty feet to 
the eastward of the Middle Dutch Church, is the 
spot oi;i which stood this bastile, into which many 
entered, but from whence few returned. The bell 
which now calls you to church is the same by which 
those prisoners took their note of time. Many, very 



178 REMINISCENCES OF 

many, counted twelve as they lay on their bed of 
straw. It was the knell of their departing hour. Be- 
fore the bell again tolled for one they had gone to 
happier climes. 

P. S. Since writing the above the religious ser- 
vices in this church have come to a final close, and it 
has been fitted up for a Post-office. From the thick- 
ness of the walls, and the durable nature of the stone 
with which they are built, under the fostering care 
of the government the building may yet stand many 
centuries, as a landmark, wherein the English caval- 
ry kept a riding-school, and within fifty feet of which 
once stood the Sugar-house prison of revolutionary 
memory. 



liCtter of the Barons and People of Scotland to the Pope, 
1330. 

" If bleak and barren Scotia's hills arise, 

" Yet peaceful are the vales and pure the skies, 

" Aud freedom fires the soul and sparkles in the eyes." 

In January, 1834, I was shown the interior of 
the Register Office, Edinburgh ; among many very 
ancient and important national state papers, I saw 
there the original of a remonstrance from the nobles, 
earls, barons, &;c. of the Scottish community to the 
Pope, dated 6th April, 1320. It contained the sig- 
nature of each person whose' name is in the instru- 



GRANT THORBURN. 179 

ment, with his seal appended to each signature with 
a piece of riband ; it is written in Latin, in a clear, 
plain hand, on a sheet of parchment, and is now 514 
years old. It appears that King Edward of England, 
finding it impossible to conquer Scotland by the 
sword, applied to the Pope, (this same Edward 
must have been just such another poor milk-and- 
water-soul as the late King of Spain, whom, the 
papers inform us, spent all his time in doing nothing 
but sewing petticoats,) who issued his bull, com- 
manding all the people in Scotland to submit to the 
authority of Edward, under pain of excommunication, 
and that he would raise on them the French, the Ger- 
mans, the Danes, Swedes, English and Irish, and 
sweep them from the face of the earth, and send 
them all to by the wholesale. The Scotch- 
men, in no way alarmed, coolly replied in substance, 
that as long as there were three hundred men in Scot- 
land who could wave a sword over their head, they 
would neither submit to Edward, to the pope, nor 
to the devil. It's a trait in the national character of 
the Scots, that even in the darkest times of popery 
the priests could never lead them so far by the nose 
as they did their more pliable neighbors, the French, 
Germans, English, Irish, &c. in their last twenty- 
eight years' struggle with the Stewarts to keep out 
Episcopacy, (You will observe that Episcopacy in 
'^ England and America are entirely different articles — 
no lords spiritual here.) They gained for their 
ichildren a portion of religious liberty no where else 
jto be found, except in America. 



180 REMINISCENCES OF i 

i 

Through ihe politeness of one of the gentlemen in 

the office, I had it translated by one of the best 

Latm scholars in Edinburo^h. Its asre and authenti- I 

i 
city, with the simplicity of its style, make it alto- f 

gether a historical curiosity. 

j 
A free translation of a copy of the Letter of the Barons, I 

Earls, Freemen, and of the Scottish Community, to the Pope, 

6th April, 1320. 

*' In the name of the Most Holy Father, Christ and 
Lord, we, the undersigned, (do hereby declare our- ' 
selves to be,) by God's providence, the humble ser- 
vants and children of lord John the high priest, and 
minister of sacred things at Rome, and of the Uni- 
versal Church* 

(Here follow the names of the Barons, Earls, 
Freemen, and many of the community of the king- 
dom of Scotland.) 

*' Not only, oh most holy Father, do we know the 
filial respect with which devotees kiss the feet of 
Saints, but we also gather, both from the deeds and 
books of the ancients, that our nation, to wit, that of 
.Scotland, has been illustrious for many great ex- 
ploits. (Our nation) coming into Scythia Major, i 
passed the pillars of Hercules, and coming through 'I 
Spain, resided for many years among very savage 
nations, and who were in subjection to no man. }\ 
Then, after a lapse of twelve hundred years, they '| 
came (like the Israelites in their passage) and dwelt |j 
in those habitations now possessed by the exiled 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 181 

Britons and Picts, who are nevertheless nearly de- 
stroyed by the fierce engagements which they have 
had with the Norwegians, Dacians and Enghsh, by 
which they have acquired many victories" and toils, 
and have showed that their children were free from 
all slavery from their forefathers. Thus far does 
history bear on us. In this kingdom they had one 
hundred and thirty kings of their own, of the royal 
blood, and no foreigner taking possession. But He, 
by whom nobles reign and others shine with great 
effulgence, even the King of kings, our Lord Jesus 
Christ, appointed by his most holy faith, after his 
passion and resurrection, that they should dwell in 
the uttermost parts of the earth, as if they had been 
the first inhabitants. Nor did he wish that they 
should be confirmed in their faith by any one but 
by their first Apostle, although second, or even third 
in rank, to wit, our most gracious Andrew the Ger- 
man, whom He always wished to preside over them 
as their patron, instead of St. Peter. But your fore- 
fathers and most holy predecessors, thinking anx- 
iously that that kingdom (of Germany, to wit) be- 
longed by special right to St. Peter, sanctioned the 
same by many favors and innumerable privileges. 
Wherefore our nation had thus far led a quiet and 
peaceable life under their protection ; till that great 
prince, Edward king of the English, and father of 
him who is hostilely (and yet under the appearance 
of a friend and an ally) infesting our (peaceful) bul- 
wark, kingdom and ' people, conscious of neither 
16 



182 REMINISCENCES OF 

guile nor mischief, and unaccustomed to wars and 
insults, (at least at that time.) Edward (whom we 
have mentioned above) committed damages, carnage 
and wrongs, plunder and incendiarism, has incar- 
cerated the prelates, burned the religious monas- 
teries, spoiling them as he laid them in ruins ; and 
having committed other enormous grievances, and 
among the rest, has among the common people 
spared neither age nor sex, religion nor rank. 
No pen is capable of writing, nor is the understand- 
ing capable of comprehending, neither can experi- 
ence teach (to the full amount) the innumerable 
evils in which he delights : but yet we are delivered 
by our most valiant prince, king and lord, Robert, 
who, after he was cured and healed of his wounds, 
has, like another Maccabaus or Joshua, freed his 
people from the hands of his enemies, and has suf- 
fered labors, toils and troubles, and dangers, even 
bordering to death. He also has a benign dispo- 
sition, and is obedient to the laws and customs, which 
we will sustain even to death. The succession of 
the law, and the debt which we were all due, made 
us assent and agree that he should be our chief and 
king, as being the person through whom safety 
accrues to the people, and who is the defender of 
our liberty, alike by his kindness and by dint of 
force, and to whom we wish to adhere in everything, 
and desist from undertakings with the EngHsh king 
and subjects, who, forsooth, wish that we and our 
kingdom be subject to them, and that we should in- 






GRANT THORBURN. 183 

stantly dethrone our king, as the subversor alike of 
their and our rights, and that we should choose 
another who is capable of our defence : but we de- 
clare that, as long as a hundred Scotsmen can be 
any where found to stand together, the English will 
never be our masters ; for we do not fight for riches, 
glory nor honor, but only for that liberty which no 
man loses except it be accompanied by his life. 
Hence it is, oh reverend Father and Lord ! that we 
entreat your holiness, with all manner of supplica- 
tion, instance and bending of hearts and knees, and 
that we have thus far recited the vicissitudes of our 
nation, whose sojourning among the nations of the 
earth have neither been a grievance upon grievance, 
nor an honor, Jews and Greeks, Scotch or English, 
who look with a father's eye at the troubles and 
trials brought upon us and the Church of God by 
the English, will see that the English king ought to 
be sufficed with what he possesses, and will look 
back to the time when England was wont to be 
pleased with seven kings to warn and rebuke those 
who required it. But there now remains nothing 
for us Scotsmen, living as we do in exiled Scotland, 
beyond which there is no habitation, there is nothing 
but for Edward to depart in peace, seeing that we 
desire it ; for it concerns him with respect to you, 
to grant, and it is our desire effectually to procure, 
the peace of the state, whatever way we can. O 
holy Father! we beg you to grant this — you who 
lookest at the cruelty of pagans, with the existing 



1S4 REMINISCENCES OF 

faults of christians, and the servitude of christians, 
not lessening the memory of your holiness, though 
your empire is bounded by the Indies. If any thing 
be wanting, (to show your holiness the true character 
of the English,) behold the ignominy and reproach 
under which the church labors in these, your times ; 
this should, therefore, act as an incentive to arouse 
some christian chiefs, who make no pretext and 
assign no reason (such as that they are at war with 
their neighbors) why they should not frame them- 
selves into a body for the protection of the Holy 
Land ; but the real cause of this pretence is, that 
they think it requires less exertion to carry on war 
with their less powerful neighbors. But if the Eng- 
lish king leave us in peace, we also will go and die 
in the Holy Land, if such be the will of our lord and 
sovereiorn. But the Ens^lish kino^ knows enouo^h not 
to be ignorant, that we hereby show and declare to 
the Vicar of Christ, and to the whole christian world, | 
that if your holiness do not deal justly between them jj 
and us, confusion will inevitably take place — the M 
destruction of our bodies — the exit of our souls — 'f 
and the other inconvenient consequences which will 
follow, and which we believe they have imputed to 
us, and which we have done to them. From what 
we are and will be, as well from the obedience with 
which we, as your children, keep our tenets, as from 
the good feeling which exists between us and you, 
our head and judge, we trust our cause will be 
looked after, thinking and hoping firmly that you 



GRANT THOKBURN. 185 

will deal rightly with us, and will reduce our ene- 
mies to nothing, and will preserve the safety of 
your holiness, who hast been this good while the 
head of this holy church. This was dated at the 
monastery of Aberbrothoc, in Scotland, 6th April, 
13£0, and in the 15th year of our kingdom, under 
our kinof above mentioned." 



Margaret and the Minister, antl Lady Jane. 

TWO SCOTCH STORIES, NOT FOUNDED ON, BUT ALL FACT. 

"The dinner comes, and down they sit; — 

"Were e'er such hungry folk? 
"There's liiile talking, and r.o wit; 

"Jt is uo time to joke." 

I spent a month in London in 1833. During this 
period I was eiigaged every night, Sundays except- 
ed, to some club, society, conversazione, or dinner 
party. Among the latter, from the peer to the peas- 
ant. On one occasion I dined at Lord B 's. There 

were twelve at the table, and six servants in splendid 
uniform to wait upon them. I put on my best black, 
and went in a carriage to this important affair. I 
had got a few glimpses at high life previous to this, 
so that I felt some confidence in myself The mis- 
tress of the feast sat at the head of the table, and on 
her right sat a young lady, a Miss C — — , at the right 
of whom I was seated, while the eldest daughter of 
16* 



186 REMINISCENCES OF 

the family, a fine young lady of seventeen, sat at my 
rio-lit hand. So I sat between the twa. When I look- 

o 

ed at the servants, with their powdered heads and 
clothes of scarlet — at the vessels of gold and silver, 
jars of China and platters of glass — at the lords and 
ladies, the sirs and counts — at the room, the seats, 
sofas, ottomans and footstools which far outshone 
what I had read of Eastern luxury and splendor, and 
whose gas-lamps and chandeliers sent forth a blaze 
more brilliant than their winter sun — I thought this 
was rather going ahead of anything of the sort I had 
ever seen, and was afraid I might make some blun- 
der ; however, I was resolved to maintain my confi- 
dence and make myself perfectly at home, like my 
worthy countryman, Sir Andrew Wyie, at a ball given 
by the Duchess of Dashingwell, in the next square to 
the one in which I was then partaking of London hos- 
pitality. I soon found that Miss C was a social, 

intelligent mortal, and felt myself at home at once. 

" Miss," said I, *' I have been at some fine parties 
in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool, but this is 
carrying the joke a little beyond anything I have before 
seen; I am afraid I may go wrong, as I am somewhat 
like the old woman in Scotland, who went to dine with 
the minister ; so, if I blunder, you must help me along." 

To this she readily consented. *' But what of the 
old lady in Scotland V said she. 

*^4 have heard my father," I replied, " relate the 
story some fifty years ago. It happened in the parish 
where he lives." 



GRANT THORBURN. 187 

She was much surprised to hear that he, my father, 
then lived, in his ninety-first year. 

** On a certain market day," I continued, " Marga- 
ret, the wife of a neighboring farmer — in addition to 
her load of hens, geese, &c. — brought a small basket 
of eggs as a present to the minister. Having sold 
off her load of sundries, she wends her way to the 
parsonage. After inquiring how he, the wife, and 
aw the bairns did, she says — 

*" I hae brought ye twa or three fresh eggs for the 
gude wife, to help in making her youl bannocks* 
(Christmas cakes.) 

" The eggs were kindly received, and it being din- 
ner hour, she was invited to stop and take her kail, 
(soup.) 

" * Nay, nay,' says Margaret, ' I dinna ken liu to 
behave at great folks' tables.' 

" ' Oh, never mind,' said the minister. * Just do as 
ye see me do.' 

** Margaret was finally persuaded, and sat down at 
the table. It so happened that the minister was old 
and well stricken with age, and had, with all, received 
a stroke of the palsy, so that, in conveying the spoon 
from the dish to his lips, the arm being unsteady, the 
soup was apt to spill ; therefore, to prevent damage 
befalling his clothes, it was his custom to fasten one 
end of the table-cloth to the top of his waistcoat, 
just under his chin. Margaret, who sat at the oppo- 
site corner of the table, watching his motions, pinned 
the other end of the table-cloth to a strohg humspun 



1S8 REMINISCENCES OF 

shawl, under her chin. She was attentive to every 
move. The minister deposited a quantity of mustard 
on the edge of his plate, and Margaret, not observing 
this J'ugal exactly, carried the spoon to her mouth. 
The mustard soon began to operate on the olfactory 
nerve. She had never seen mustard before, and did 
not know what it meant. She thought she was be- 
witched. To expectorate on the carpet icad be a sin. 
She was almost crazy with pain. Just at this mo- 
ment the girl coming in with clean plates, opened 
the door near where Margaret sat. Margaret at once 
sprang for the door, upset the girl, plates and all, and 
swept the table of all its contents, the crash of which 
added speed to her flight. Making two steps at once 
in descending the stairs, the minister, being fast at the 
other end of the table-cloth, was compelled to follow 
as fast as his tottering limbs could move. He held to 
the banisters until the pins gave way, when away 
flew Margaret, who never again darkened the minis- 
ter's door." 

Miss B startled the company with a loud laugh 

at the conclusion of the story. Having explained the 
cause of her mirth, I was asked to repeat the story 
for the good of the whole, and the laugh which fol- 
lowed its repetition, I dare say, did them more good 
than their sumptuous dinner. 

Most of the gentlemen were conversing about a 
contested election on foot at that time. As the 
ladies near me, however, paid no attention to that 
subject; and I having no interest in the matter, we 



GRANT THOREURN. 189 

had our own conversation among ourselves. Miss C — 
remarked, that since she had read Sir Walter she 
was alive to every thing Scotch ; and asked if I would 
not give her another Scotch story. I then told her 
the story of 

LADY JANE. 

i 

The earl of Wigton, whose name figures in the 
I Scottish annals during the reign of Charles II., had 
three daughters, named Lady Frances, Lady Grizel, 
and Lady Jane ; the latter being the youngest by 
■several years, and by many degrees the most beauti- 
ful. All the three usually resided with their mother, 
at the family-seat in Sterlingshire ; but the two eldest 
! were occasionally permitted to attend their father in 
\ Edinburgh, in order that they might have a chance 
I of obtaining lovers at the court held there by the 
Duke of Lauderdale ; while Lady Jane was kept 
constantly at home, and debarred from the society of 
the capital, lest her superior beauty might interfere 
with and foil the attractions of her sisters, who, ac- 
cording to the notions of that age, had a sort of right 
of primogeniture in matrimony, as well as in what 
was called heirship. It may easily be imagined that 
Lady Jane spent no very pleasant life, shut up, as it 
were, in a splendid palace, to be sure, but having no 
company except her old cross mother and the servants, 
; the palace being in a remote part of the country. 
Besides, she was so very beautiful her parents were 
afraid that any gentleman should see her, and so take 



190 REMINISCENCES OF 

the shine off her two eldest sisters, who were rather 
homely-looking articles, and older by eight or ten 
years. Jane was now in her seventeenth year. 

At the period when our history opens, Lady Jane's 
charms, although never seen in Edinburgh, had be- 
gun to make some noise there. A young gentleman, 
one day passing the garden, espied what he termed 
an angel picking strawberries. After gazing till 
he saw her retreat under the guns of her father's 
castle, he inquired among the cottagers, and learned 
it was Jane, the youngest daughter of Lord Wigton. 
He rode on and reported the matter in the capital. 
The young gallants about the court were taken by 
surprise. Lord Wigton and his two daughters made 
quite a swell in Edinburgh at this time ; but no one 
ever heard of Lord Wigton having a third daughter. 
These reports induced Lord Wigton to confine her 
ladyship even more strictly than heretofore, lest 
perchance some gallant might make a pilgrimage to 
his country-seat, in order to steal a glimpse of his 
beautiful daughter ; he even sent an express to his 
wife, directing her to have Jane confined to the pre- 
cincts of the house and garden, and also to be at- 
tended by a trusty female servant. The consequence 
was, that the young lady complained most piteously 
to her mother of the tedium and listlessness of her 
life, and wished with all her heart that she was as 
ugly, as old, and happy as her sisters. 

Lord Wigton was not insensible to the cruelty of 
his policy, however well he might be convinced of its 



GRANT THORBURN. 191 

necessity. He loved this beautiful daughter more 
than either of the others, and it was only in obedi- 
ence to what he conceived to be the commands of 
duty that he subjected her to this restraint ; his lord- 
ship tlierefore felt anxious to alleviate, in some mea- 
sure, the disagreement of her solitary confinement, 
and knowing her to be fond of music, he sent her by 
a messenger a theorbo, with which he thought she 
would be able to amuse herself in a way very much 
to her mind ; not considering that, as she could not 
play upon the instrument, it would be little better to 
her than an unmeaning toy. By the return of the 
messenger she sent a very affectionate letter to her 
father, thanking him for the instrument, but remind- 
ing him of the oversight, and begged him to send 
some person who could teach her to play upon it. 

The gentry of Scotland at that period were in 
the habit of engaging private teachers in their fami- 
lies. They were generally young men of tolerable 
education, who had visited the continent. A few days 
after the receipt of his daughter's letter, it so hap- 
pened that he was applied to by one of those useful 
personages, wishing employment. He was a tall, 
handsome youth, apparently about twenty-five years 
of age. After several questions, his lordship was 
satisfied that he was just the person he was in quest 
;of; as, in addition to many other accomplishments, 
he was particularly well qualified to teach the the- 
orbo, and had no objection to enter the service, with 
the proviso that he was to be spared the disgrace of 



192 REMINISCENCES OF 

wearing the family livery. The next day saw Rich- j 
ard (his name was Richard Livingston) on the road 
to Wigton palace, bearing a letter from Lord Wigton I 
to his daughter Jane, setting forth the qualities of the | 
young man, and hoping she would now be better ecu- ' 
tented with her present residence. 

It was Lady Jane's practice every day to take a 
walk, prescribed by her father, in the garden, on i; 
which occasions the countess conceived herself acting jl 
up to the letter of her husband's commands when 
she ordered Richard to attend his pupil. This ar- 
rangement was exceedingly agreeable to Lady Jane, 
as they sometimes took out the theorbo and added 
music to the other pleasures of the walk. 

However, to make a long story short, it would 
have been anew problem in nature could these young j 
people have escaped from falling in love. They 
were constantly together; no company frequented] 
the house ; the mother was old and infirm, and per- 
fectly satisfied when she knew Lady Jane wg^ withini 
the limits prescribed by her father. Lady Jane was! 
now in her eighteenth year, and probably never had 
seen, and certainly never conversed with any man 
having the education and polish of a gentleman,' 
Although Richard had not yet told his tale of love, hisi 
genteel deportment, handsome person, and certaini 
sorts of attention which love only can dictate, hadj 
won her heart before she knew it; her only fear noT«il 
was that she might betray herself; and the more she i 
admired, the more reserved she became towards him 



GRANT THORBURN. 193 

As for Richard, it was no wonder that he should be 
' deeply smitten with the charms of his mistress ; for 
ever, as he stole a long furtive glance at her graceful 
form, he thought he had never seen, in Spain or Italy 
any such specimens of female loveliness ; and the 
admiration with which she knew he beheld her, his 
musical accomplishments which had given her so much 
pleasure, all conspired to render him precious in her 
sight. The habit of contemplating her lover every 
day, and that in the dignified character of an instructor, 
gradually blinded her to his humble quality, and to 
! the probable sentiments of her father and the world 
' upon the subject of her passion ; besides, she often 
j thought that Richard was not what he seemed to be ! 
I She had heard of Lord Belhaven, who, in the period 
! immediately preceding, had taken refuge from the fury 
i of Cromwell in the service of the English nobleman 
I whose daughter's heart he had won under the hum- 
I ble disguise of a gardener, and whom, on the recur- 
rence of better times, he carried home to Scotland as 
his lady. 

Things continued in this way during the greater 
part of the summer without the lovers coming to an 
eclaircissement, wlien the Earl of Home, a gay young 
noblem.an, hearing of the beauty of Lady Jane, left 
Edinburgh and took the way to Lord Wigton's pal- 
ace, resolving first to see, then to love, and finally to 
run away with the young lady. He skulked about for 
several days, and at last got a sight of the hidden 
beauty over the garden wall, as she was talking with 
17 



194 REMINISCENCES OF 

Richard. He thought he had never seen a lady so 
beautiful before, and, as a matter of course, resolved 
to make her his ovv^n. He watched next day, and 
meeting Richard on the outside of the premises, pro- 
posed by a bribe to secure his services in procuring 
him an interview with Lady Jane. Richard prompt- 
ly rejected the offer, but upon a second thought saw 
fit to accept it. On the afternoon of the second day 
he was to meet Lord Home, and report progress. 
"With this they parted — Richard to muse on this un- 
expected circumstance, which he saw would blast all 
his hopes unless he should resolve upon prompt mea- 
sures ; and the Earl to the humble village inn, where 
he had for the last few days acted the character of 
** the daft ladfrae Edinburgh, tvha seemed to ha^e mair 
siller than sense." 

What passed between Jane and Richard that after- 
noon and evening my informant does not say ; early 
the next morning, however, Richard might have been 
seen jogging swiftly along the road to Edinburgh, 
mounted on a stout nag, with the fair Lady Jane com- 
fortably seated on a pillion behind him. It was mar- 
ket day in Edinburgh, and the lanes and streets, on 
entering the city, were crowded with carts, &c. so 
that they were compelled to slacken their pace, and 
were thus exposed to the scrutinizing gaze of the 
inhabitants. 

Both had endeavored to disguise every thing re- 
markable in their appearance, so far as dress and 
demeanor could be disguised ; yet, as Lady Jane could 



GRANT THORBURN. 195 

not conceal her extraordinary beauty, and Richard had 
not found it possible to part with a sly and dearly be- 
loved mustache, it naturally followed that they were 
honored with a great deal of staring, and many an 
urchin upon the street threw up his arms as they 
passed along, exclaiming, "Oh! the black bearded 
man!" or "Oh the bonnie ladie !" The men all 
admired Lady Jane, the women Richard. The lovers 
had thus to run a sort of gauntlet of admiration till 
they reached the house of a friend, when the minis- 
ter being sent for, in a few minutes Richard and Lady 
Jane were united in the holy bands of matrimony. 

In Scotland, the promise of the man and woman 
before witnesses constitutes a lawful marriage. 

When the ceremony was concluded, and the cler- 
gyman and witnesse ssatisfied and dismissed, the 
lovers left the house, with the design of walking in to 
the city. Lady Jane had heard much from her sisters 
in praise of Edinburgh, but had never seen that gude 
toon until that day. In conformity with a previous 
arrangement. Lady Jane walked first, like a lady of 
honor, and Richard followed close behind, with the 
dress and deportment of a servant; her ladyship was 
dressed in her finest suit, and adorned with her finest 
jewels, all which she had brought with her on pur- 
pose in a small bundle, which she bore on her lap as 
she rode behind Richard. Her step was light and 
her bearing gay. As she moved along the crowd in 
the streets gave way on both sides, and wherever she 
went she left behind her a wake, as it were, of admi- 
ration and confusion. 



196 REMINISCENCES OF 

It SO happened that on this day the Parliament of 
Scotland was going to adjourn, a day on which there 
was always a general turn out among the gentry, and 
a grand procession. Richard and his lady now directed 
their steps to the Parliament Square. Here all was 
bustle and magnificence ; dukes and lords, ladies and 
gentlemen, all in the most splendid attire, threading 
their way among the motley crowd. Some smart, 
well-dressed gentlemen were arranging their cloaks 
and swords by the passage-way which had given entry 
to Richard and Jane, most of whom, at the sight of 
our heroine, stood still in admiration; one of them, 
however, with the trained assurance of a rake, ob- 
serving her to be very beautiful, and a stranger, with 
only one attendant, accosted her in language which 
made her blush and tremble. Richard's brow red- 
dened with anger as he commanded the offender to 
leave the lady alone. 

"And who are you, my brave fellow?" said the 
youth, with bold assurance. 

*' Sirrah !" exclaimed Richard, forgetting his liverys, 
" I am that lady's husband — her servant, I mean — ;" 
and here he stopped short in confusion. 

"Admirable!" exclaimed the intruder. "Ha, ha, 
ha ! Here, sirs, is a lady's lackey who does not know 
whether he is his mistress's servant or husband. Let 
us give him up to the town guard." 

So saying he attempted to push Richard aside and 
take hold of the lady; but he had not time to touch 
her garments with even a finger before her protector 



GRANT THORBURN. 197 

had a rapier gleaming before his eyes, and threatening 
him with instant death if he laid a hand upon his mis- 
tress. At sight of the steel, the bold youth stepped 
back, drew his sword, and was preparing to fight 
when a crowd collected. His Majesty's representative 
was at this moment stepping out of the Parliament- 
House, who ordered the officer of his guard to bring 
the parties before him. This order obeyed, he in- 
quired the reason of this disgraceful occurrence. 

" Why, here is a fellow, my lord," answered the 
youth who had insulted the lady, *' who says he is the 
husband of a lady whom he attends as a liveryman, 
and a lady too, the bonniest, I dare say, that has been 
seen in Scotland since the days of Queen Magdaline." 

"And what matters it to you," said the officer, "in 
what relation this man stands to his lady 1 Let the 
parties come forward and tell their own story." 

The lords in attendance were now gathering around, 
all eager to see the bonnie lady. Lord Wigton was in 
the number. When he saw his daughter in this unex- 
pected place, he was so astounded that he came near to 
fainting and falling from his horse. It was some minutes 
before he could speak, and his first ejaculation was — 

**OJane! Jane! what's this ye've been aboot? and 
what's hrochi ye here V 

*' Oh Heaven ha^e a care o' us !" exclaimed another 
venerable peer at this juncture, who had just come 
up, " and what's brocht my sonsie son Kichard Liv- 
ingston to Edinburgh, when he should have heenfecht- 
en the Dutch in Pennsylvania'?" 
17* 



198 REMINISCENCES OP 

And here suffer me to remark, that this same Rich- 
ard Livingston (a progenitor of the respectable fami- 
lies who bear his name in this State) was the second 
son of Robert, Earl of Linlithgow. Of course, having 
nothing to depend on but his head and his sword, 
he had joined a regiment under orders for America; 
but hearing the fame of Jane's beauty, by bribing a 
servant who concealed him in the garden, got sight of 
her as she was watering her pots of Primrose and 
Polyanthus. He immediately left the army and as- 
sumed the disguise by which he insinuated himself 
into the good graces of her father. 

The two lovers being thus recognized by both their 
parents, stood, with downcast eyes, perfectly silent, 
while all was buzz and confusion around them ; for 
those concerned were not more surprised at the as- 
pect of their affairs than were all the rest at the beauty 
of the far-famed but hitherto unseen Lady Jane 
Fleming. The Earl of Linlithgow, Richard's father, 
was the first to speak aloud; and this he did in a 
laconic though important query, which he couched 
in the simple words — 

"Are you married, hairnsV^ 

** Yes, dearest father," said his son, gathering cou- 
rage and going up close to his saddle-bow, "and I 
beseech you to extricate us from this crowd, and I 
will tell you all when we are alone." 

"A pretty man ye are, truly," said his father, "to 
be staying at home and getting married, when you 
should have been abroad winning honors and wealth, 



GRANT THORBURK. 199 

as your gallant grand-uncle did with Gustavus, king 
of Sweden. However, since better may no* be, I 
maun try and console my Lord Wigton, who I doot 
not has the warst o' the bargain, ye ne'er-do-weel V 

He then went up to Lady Jane's father and shaking 
him by the hand, said — 

"Though we have been made relatives against our 
! will, yet I hope we may continue good friends. The 
i young folks," he continued, " are not ill matched 
1 either. At any rate, my lord, let us put a good face 
! on the matter before these gentle folks. I'll get horses 
[for the two, and they'll join the procession; and the 
de'il lia'e me if Lady Jane dis na outshine the hale o' 
themr 

"My Lord Linlithgow," responded the graver and 
more implacable Earl Wigton, "it may suit you to 
take this matter blithely, but let me tell you it's a 
much more serious affair for me. What think ye 
am I to do with Kate and Grizzy now?" 

" Hoot toot, my lord," said Linlithgow, with a smile, 
"their chances are as gude as ever, I assure you, and 
&ae will everybody think who kens them." 

The cavalcade soon reached the court-yard of Holy- 
rood-House, where the duke and duchess invited the 
company to a ball, which they designed to give that 
evening in the hall of the palace. When the com- 
pany dispersed, Lords Linlithgow and Wigton took 
their young friends under their own protection, and 
I after a little explanation, both parties were reconciled. 
], The report of Lady Jane's singular marriage having 



200 REMINISCENCES OF 

now spread abroad, the walk from the gate to the 
palace was lined with noblemen an hour before the 
time for assembling, all anxious to see Lady Jane. 
At length the object of all their anxiety and attention 
came tripping along, hand in hand with her father-in- 
law. A buzz of admiration was heard around; and 
when they entered the ball-room, the duke and duchess 
arose and gave them a welcome, hoping they would 
often adorn the circle at Holyrood-palace. In a short 
time the dancing commenced, and amid all the ladies 
who exhibited their charms and magnificent attire in 
that captivating exercise, none was, either in person or 
dress, half so brilliant as Lady Jane. 

Let me add in conclusion, that this story is a histori- 
cal fact, confirmed by tradition. It occurred within 
six miles of my birth-place. I have heard my grand- 
father, who died at the age of ninety-six, and my father, 
who died in his ninety-third year, each relate it as an 
undisputed fact. 

The posterity of Jane and Richard occupy the same 
lands and palaces at the present day. It is a name 
revered and held in high estimation all over Scotland,: 
and I might add, wherever the name is known. Wit- 
ness the venerable Chancellor Livingston, who admin- 
istered the oath of office to Washington, the first and 
best of Presidents, and who cheered the heart and 
strengthened the hands of Fulton by his counsel and 
money, till through their united exertions the first 
steamboat furrowed the waters of the Hudson. Co- 
temporary with him was Rev. Dr. Livingston, of New- 



GRANT THORBURN. 201 

York, whose praise is in all the churches. It is a name 
(if my memory of the last fifty years serves me) that 
never was sullied by any of the political rascality 
which has kept our State in a stew ever since 1797. 
About that period Brokholst, Peter R. and a few 
more of the Livingstons, arrayed themselves under 
the Tammany flag; but finding they must associate 
with Burr, «fec. &c. &c. they left their ranks while yet 
their garments were clean and their honor unstained. 
These men are the lineal descendants of Richard and 
Lany Jane, the heroes of our tale. Some of the fami- 
ly fled from Scotland at the time of the persecution ; 
and from Holland they emigrated to this State, and 
settled on "Livingston's Manor." 



Cliristmas and Ne'w Yeai'»s Day. 

"Bid the inoni of youth 
"Rise to nev/ light, and beam afiesh the days 
"Of innoceuce, siiuplicity and truth." 

This day, fifty years ago, I first saw the Christmas 
sun gild the steeple of old Trinity. On each return 
of the day, I have lived over again, in memory, the 
pleasures in which I that day participated. I am not 
going to write a funeral tale, because all whom I 
then knew, of my own age, are slumbering in the 
tomb — their spirits returned to Him who gave them. 
God is Love. Solomon says (and he was the wisest 



02" REMINISCENCES OF 

king that ever lived, not even excepting King John, 
at Washington) that the merry man lives as long as 
the sad. This being the case, why should men brood 
continually upon the dark side of the cloud '{ for, as 
sure as wind and tide propel them, the white side 
will follow. The press, the pulpit and the bar re- 
sound with the bugbear of " miserable world .'" They 
are a set of miserable fools that say so. We could 
not mend the world, even if we knew how. A thank- 
ful man is a happy man ; and we have always reason 
to be thankful. When you break your arm, you are 
glad it was not your leg; when you break your leg, 
you are glad it was not your neck ; and above a^l 
temporal blessings, a sober man — no matter how 
poor — ought to be thankful that he don't get drunk ; 
for this unfits him for either giving or receiving plea- 
sure. And beyond all, every mechanic ought to be 
thankful that his lot is cast in this plentiful country ; 
for even though he may not have risen higher than a , 
journeyman, if he has a wife who is a good manager, 
has a good temper, and is a good cook, (and I could 
pick out a thousand such articles among the lasses in 
New- York,) he may live as sumptuously every day 
as do the little princes in Germany who live on the 
sweat and blood of their white slaves. But this is a 
digression from my outset about Christmas, though 
not yet so far off the road ; for Christmas would be 
a poor concern without a goose, or New Year with-j 
out a turkey; for even in the hard times of '35, '36 
and '37, when friend Andrew Jackson sprung a 



GRANT THORBURN. 203 

■nine on the Banks, Bonds and Currency, we could 
Duy a turkey for fifty cents, and a goose for thirty- 
seven cents. But to return to Christmas, 1794. 

The morning was calm, mild, and bland, as in the 
nonth of May. In my mind's eye, I yet see every 
icene as they were shifting on that pleasant day. 
\Iy young friend asked me to accompany her to the 
VIethodist Chapel in John-street. I loved to follow 
vhere she led. I could give you the hymn and the 
ext, if necessary. I see the preacher as he stood in 
he pulpit, and fancy I hear his voice. 

At the corner of Nassau-street and Maiden-lane, 
n a one-and-a-half story wooden shell, lived Alexan- 
,er Cuthill. His business was to clothe the naked ; 
■)ut his chief hobby (for every man has his hobby) 
onsisted in a large thermometer. Wishing to know 
he state of the weather, we stepped in. His mer- 
cury indicated fifty-nine. His window was open on 
he street along which the people were crowding to 
he Middle Dutch Church. The bell was tolling 
lalf past ten, and at this moment a large blue fly, a 
!ommon harbinger of summer, came buzzing in at 
he window. I mention this to let you see that, 
ilthough we had no steam-boats in those days, yet 
ve had such Christmas days as we have not seen 
tiince. 
But apropos of Mr. Cuthill : he was a man of 

otions, but his grand lever was the thermometer. 

ly that he would have moved the world, provided 

,e could have found a planet whereon to fix his 



204 REMINISCENCES OF 

machine. He never left the city during the twelve 
seasons that the yellow fever prevailed ; and in 1822, 
when I was shut up in the infected district, which 
comprised all that part of the city south of Liberty- 
street, from river to river, (for here the Board of 
Health put up a board fence eight feet high, by way 
of drawing a line between the livinof and the dead, 
and also set a watch by night and day to prevent 
any one from venturing on this place of skulls,) Mr. 
Guthill forced an entry every day at 10 a. m. to see 
if I was dead or alive ; and always, from the state of 
his thermometer, would give a good guess as to the 
number of new cases that might be reported that 
day. In winter he wore a pair of thick buckskin 
gloves to keep out the cold, and exactly the same ! 
gloves in summer to keep out the heat. He was ' 
neat and clean in his person and apparel, and dressed 
in a drab-colored single-breasted coat, white swan's 
down vest, black cassimere breeches, silver buckles, 
on the knees, cotton stockings as white as snow, j 
shoes shining with Martin's blacking, and buckles : 
brushed as bright as gold. In short, he was the last i 
of the cocked-hat fraternity in New- York. He had 
a wife, but no family ; so she devoted her whole 
powers to the cooking of his food and keeping of 
his person neat and clean ; and at 10 A. M. when 
she looked upon her Sandy as he stepped from the; 
stoop as trim as a pigeon when she starts from herl 
coop in a summer morning, there was not a prouder 
woman in all Christendom. But they are gone, and 



GRA^'T THOREURN. 205 

we will never look upon their like again. So we 
return to Christmas, 1794. 

On that day the stores and work-shops were nearly 
all shut up, a few belonging to the Friends in Pearl- 
street excepted. Then men had time to worship 
God ; now they have only time to worship Mammon — 
that golden calf in Wall-street. Then we had only 
two banks, and not one broker ; now we have thirty 
banks and ten times ten score of brokers. Then the 
floors were scrubbed and sprinkled with white sand 
from Coney Island ; now they are covered with 
cloth from Brussels and carpets from Turkey. Then 
the people were happy ; now they live in splendid 
misery. Then when the ladies got the headache 
they dipped their raven locks in a pail of cool water, 
and were cured ; now they pour out a bottle of Co- 
logne water, to the cost of fifty cents, and yet the 
pain remains. . Fifty years ago I never heard of a 
bottle of Cologne water being in the city; now I am 
told that two hundred thousand dollars are spent 
annually on this useless drug. Fifty years ago the 
daughters of able merchants and thriving mechanics 
would sing with the spinning-wheel, and weave on 
the loom, like the daughters of men when Rachel 
was a girl and Jacob stood by his mother's knee ; 
now they sit humming French airs and jingling a 
piano until they get the vapors in their heads and 
the megrims in their bosoms. Then the lasses wore 
woollen stockings and double-soled shoes, and lived 
to be eighty ; now they wear silk stockings and satin 
18 



206 KEMINISCEKCES OF 

shoes ; and before they live half their days the doc- 
tor and grave-digger ride riot over their graves. 
Then if we took a notion to get married, we finished 
our day's work at 7 p. m. as usual, got supper at 8, 
put on our Sunday coat, and the lassie her summer 
hat, and at 9 we walked to Rev. Dr. John Rogers 
in Pine-street, or Rev. Bishop Provost in Vesey- 
btreet. The Bishop or the Doctor's man-servant and 
maid-servant were always dressed by eight p. m. and 
ready to officiate as bride's-maid and groom's-man, 
and from their long experience in such matters they 
could act their part up to nature. A Spanish dollar 
was the regular fee. We then walked home alone. 
Having caught the bird, we took her to the nest we 
had provided for her. Perhaps we began with three 
rush-bottomed chairs, at 25 cents each ; it was one 
more than we wanted ; and we had our room, though 
small, to ourselves ; our hearts knew their own hap- 
piness, and no stranger intermeddled with our joys. 
Now the bachelor of thirty- five takes his bird of fif- 
teen to the public table of Madame B 's board- 
ing-house, or the promiscuous group in Howard's 
Hotel, where she suffers from the stare of some im- 
pudent, brainless blockhead, or is put to the blush 
by the insolent titter of a set of black-whiskered, 
most consummate fools ; and this is the refinement 
of the nineteenth century. 

Now, my young friends, don't you think our old 
sober-sided mode of doing this business was more 
natural, more pleasant, ami more economical than 



^ 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 207 

the present bombast and jingle fashion ? Why, I 
have known a parson get a check for $500 for buck- 
ling a couple together. Fifty years ago we got mar- 
ried at night, went to work at six in the morning 
with all the sober realities of life on our backs, and 
at eight found our breakfast made ready, for the first 
time, by the hands of her we loved best. In this 
there was a pleasure unspeakable and sublime. On 
Wednesday we changed our nether frock, soiled 
with brick-dust, coal-smoke, or the labor of the 
plane, and j^erhaps a rent in the sleeve or a button 
gone astray. On Saturday night we found the shirt 
clean and neatly folded, the rent mended, making 
them look cC7naist as gude as new. This was the labor 
of love. A bachelor has this done for money, but 
the wash-woman embezzles his stockings, tears his 
collars, and throws his vest to the wind, because she 
is a hireling. The money spent by our young clerks 
and mechanics for board, washing, mending, tear, 
wear and cabbaging, political clubs and smoking 
Spanish cigars, is more than sufficient to support 
himself and an industrious wife. Fifty years ago 
Mrs. Washington knit stockings for her general ; 
now there is not fifty ladies in the city who can play 
that part; and hundreds know not how the apple 
gets into the heart of the dumpling. 

On New Year's day, as soon as service was over 
in the Middle Dutch Church, you might see the 
whole company of elders and deacons adjourn to the 
house of the worthy Dutch mayor, Richard Varick, 



208 RE.MINISCEIV'CES OF 



l| 



corner of Pine-street and Broadway : there they 
broke the first cookey and sipped the first glass of 
cherry-bounce for the season. From thence they 
went from house to house and broke their bread with 
merry hearts. Dinner being ended, John, with his 
wife and oldest children, would go to the house of 
James ; the compliments of the season, the custom- 
ary salute, the bounce, (cherry-brandy sweet and 
weak,) and the cookey, with the health of the family, 
being all discussed, they joined in com.pany and 
went the rounds; they gathered as they rolled on- 
ward, and before the moon sunk behind the blue 
hills of the Jerseys, you might see twoscore of these 
happy mortals in one company. In all this the rules 
of decorum and sobriety were rarely infringed upon. 
To be sure, we had no temperance societies in those 
d^js, for every man kept a temperance society in 
his own house. 

Young folks smile when their grandfathers tell of 
the happy days of auld lang syne. But certain it 
is that fifty years ago the people in New-York lived 
much happier than they do now. They had no arti- 
ficial wants — only two banks — rarely gave a note — 
— but one small play-house — no operas, no otto- 
mans, few sofas or sideboards, and perhaps not six 
pianos in the city. Now more money is paid to ser- 
vants in some of these five-story houses for rubbing, 
scrubbing, and polishing of brasses and furniture — 
for wiping, dusting, and breaking of glasses and 
China — than it took to support a decent family fifty 
vears aero. 



GRANT TirORBURN. 209 



Reminisrence of the City Hotel. 

" Sonielimtjs in liand the spade or plough he caught, 
" Forth calling all with which the earth is fraught; — 
" Sometimes he plied the strong mechanic tool." 

The City Hotel in Broadway was built in the 
summer and autumn of 1794, and is the first house 
in the city, and also in America, whose roof was 
covered with slates. Having set up the timbers for 
the roof, and nailed the rough planks whereon to 
lay the slates, they came to a dead stand for lack of 
nails to fasten on the slates. Every hardware store 
in the city was ransacked in vain, as prior to this no 
slates had been used on the continent ; therefore no 
one imported any of the nails. There were nail- 
makers in New-York and Philadelphia enough, but 
they could only make shingle nails. There is a cer- 
tain art in forming the head of the slate-nail, which 
only nail-makers from Europe are up to. 

In this dilemma they applied to me, who at that 
time was hammering ten-penny nails at No. 55 
Liberty-street, wishing to know, first, if I could make 
the nails. Being answered in the affirmative, they 
inquired, secondly, how much per thousand I asked 
for making, they finding coal and iron 1 I promised 
to give them an answer in the morning ; this was at 
4 P. M. From this time till next day at noon I de- 
bated in my own mind whether to charge one dollar 
for making a thousand, or ninety-four cents. I have 
18* 



210 REMINISCENCES OF 



1 



often laughed since at my own simplicity. Had I 
charged two dollars per thousand it would have been 
but a moderate compensation ; ten hours is a lawful 
day's work, for which a laborer who never served an 
apprenticeship receives a dollar. I had served seven 
years in learning to make these nails, and by close 
attention could make 100 per hour ; nearly two nails 
per minute. 1 have made 120 of these nails in one 
hour. But very few men belonging to the same 
craft could make as many : the nail is one and a half 
inches long, having a head as broad and as flat as a 
ten-cent piece. I knew, had I asked three dollars 
for making a thousand, they would have been com- 
pelled to give it, for they could not put the slates on 
the roof till I made the nails for them. One dollar 
and fifty cents, however, would have been but a fair 
compensation ; but until I came to America I had 
never been seventeen miles from the house in 
which I was born ; and as I had only been five 
months in this country, I was as ignorant of men 
and their manners as they who are born on the high- 
est peak of the Rocky mountains. 

Besides, ray father was a genuine conscientious 
Scotch Presbyterian of the old school. He taught 
his children never to take advantage of their neigh- 
bor's necessity, and to loVe our neighbor as our- 
selves. I thought, when I came to reconsider, (as 
they say in Congress,) I had loved my neighbors of 
the Hotel better than myself, (thus steering on the 
wrong side of the Commandment,) inasmuch as I 



GRANT THOREURN. 211 

did not charge them a sufficient compensation for 
my time and labor. I had not yet learned that every 
man had his price. I knew not then that the time 
was at hand when the bawling, pretending friends of 
the people would get into power — would loosen the 
purse-strings, and shave the country, even to the 
bone. Washington, Jay, Hamilton and others, all 
honest men, were at the head. Defaulters were 
unknown at that time ; but presently there marched 
in a troop of the pure Democracy, with Aaron Burr 
at their head ; and then commenced the tus;- at the 
purse-strings. Every office, from the treasury at 
Washington down to the revenue boat-office on the 
south point of Whitehall, New- York, sent forth 
defaulters ; and so it continues to the present day. 
But this is digression. 

I think it was twenty-five years after the Hotel 
was finished, that happening to pass that way, I 
observed the slaters stripping the roof, preparatory 
to raising the building another story. I climbed up 
stairs, got on the roof, and gathered a handful of my 
nails, which I put in a bottle, pouring wine and oil 
among them to keep them from rust ; and they are 
now as fresh as the hand that made them fifty years 
ago. 



212 REMINISCENCES OF 



Old Times; or lieminisccnceii of New-Yovk. 

" Bal)yloii of old 
*' Not more the glory of tlie earth than she, 
" A more accomplish'd world's chief glory now." 

When I first saw New- York in 1794, there lived 
an old man on the south corner of Pine and Nassau- 
streets. His hair, beard and eyebrows were whitened 
by the frosts of one hundred winters ; he sat on the 
stoop of an old Dutch house, and all that w^ent by 
looked on and passed orer on the other side. He 
seemed the one man in creation unknown and un- 
knowino;-. With this man I loved to converse about 
the men and scenes of a b^J-'gone century. He re- 
membered the negro-plot, he saw the ferry-boats 
land their passengers from Paulushook, (now Jersey 
City,) at the ferry-house, corner of Broad and Gar- 
den, now Exchanee-street: he assisted the fishermen 
to draw their seines on the beach where now stands 
Greenwich-street ; he remembered the ground from 
Pine-street to Maiden-lane, and from Nassau-street 
to the East river one field of corn; he had seen a 
mill whose wheel was turned by the waters from a 
spring near the head of Coenties-slip. Mill-street 
took its name from this circumstance. (Since the fire 
of 1835, I believe Mill-street is struck out from the 
map of the city.) The first synagogue for the Jews in 
this city was erected in Mill-street ; the reason as- 
signed, because of its vicinity to the waters of this 
spring — water being much used on their days of puri- 



GRANT THORBURN. 213 

fication. So deep was Water-street covered with 
water in his time, he told me he could point out the 
spot where a vessel was sunk, and now lies buried 
deep under ground. Roach and sun-fish were caught 
in the Collect-pond, now a part of Elm and Centre- 
streets, as late as 1793. 

He remembered the ancient City Hall, (Stadt- 
Huys,) at the head of Coenties-slip ; said it had often 
been used as a fort in Leister's civil wars, against the 
real fort at the battery. A ball there shot at it lodged 
in the side wall of the house belonging to Tunis 
Quick, at the head of Coenties-slip. This house was 
taken down in 1827 ; it stood on the south-west cor- 
ner of Pearl-stieet and Coenties-slip. That ball was 
given to Doctor Mitchell as a relic. 

There were markets at every slip on the East riv- 
er. The one at the foot of Wall-street was called the 
Meal-market. There were no slips on the north side 
of the city. But few of the streets were paved; 
Broadway, and other streets, all had their gutter- 
ways in the middle. 

He remembered seeing the blockhouses in a line 
of palisades quite across the island. They went in 
a line from the back of Chambers-street. They were 
built of logs, about one story high ; and being unoc- 
cupied, the Indians used to take up their abode, and 
make and sell baskets there. 

In 1772 Broadway extended no farther up than the 
Hospital, at that time the ground whereon it now 
stands was an apple orchard belonging to the Rut- 



214 REMI>JISCENCES OF 



4 



gers family. There was a rope-walk a little north o: 
Courtland-street, running from Broadway to the ' 
North river ; another ran parallel to it from opposite 
the present Bridewell prison. 

The City Hall at the head of Broad-street, besides 
holding the Courts, was also a prison ; in front of 
which he remembered seeing a wJiipping-post, pillory 
and stocks. 

He remembered Lindley Murray, the grammarian. 
He lired near Peck-slip, and when on his way to 
and returning from the Fly-market, foot of Maiden- 
lane, he used to leap across Burling-slip (a distance 
of twenty-one feet) with a pair of fowls in his hands. 
To his efforts on these occasions was attributed his 
lameness in after-life. 

He remembered ship-yards between Beekman and 
Burling-slips. The Bear, now Washington market, 
was the only one on the North river side, and took 
its name from the fact of the first meat ever sold in it 
having been Bear's flesh. 

In my own time I remember the old Tea-water 
pump, which stood between Centre and the rear of 
the lots on Chatham-street ; which was then, in 1794, 
considered the only water we could obtain fit for 
drawing tea. It was brought to our doors, and sold 
for a penny-bill per gallon. It has long been out of 
use, and was, I believe, filled up about eighteen years 
ago. I found the water brought by a pipe into a li- 
quor store, in the house No. 126 Chatham-street. I 
drank of it to revive recollections. 



GRANT THORBURN. 215 

In 1798, when they wore digging in Broadway to 
lay the Manhattan pipes, by the south corner of Wall- 

1 street they dug up a large square post ; from the 
guage of my eye, I think it contained about ten solid 
feet. It was in a good state of preservation, and as 
the yellow fever was raging at the time, and very few 

, pedestrians in the street, it was laid on the pavement 
for the inspection of the Board of Health, their depu- 
ties and officers, hearsemen and grave-diggers, with a 
few solitary mortals who found it inconvenient to 
leave the city. Many came to look on it, but none 
could conjecture what might have been its use. At 
last a very old man, who said he w^as born in 1695 in 
New- York, came to view it. He remembered seeing 
one of the city gate-posts stand there, and said, this 
was the bottom of the post. He added, that a stockade 
ten or twelve feet high ran from the East river up 
Wall-street and down to the North river, to keep out 
the Indians. 



A visit to Mrs. Grant, of liaggan. 

" E'en age itself seems privileg'd in her 
" With clear exemption from its own defects. 
"With youthful smiles, she goes toward tlie grave 
" Sprightly, and almost without decay." 

Mrs. Grant was the daughter of Duncan M' Vicar, 

I and was born in 1755. Her father came out to this 

country in 1757, under the patronage of Col. Archi- 



216 REMINISCENCES OF 

bald Montgomery, afterward Earl of Eglinton, and 
was an officer in the 55th regiment of the line. In the 
following year Mrs. M'Vicar and her infant daugh- 
ter also came to New- York, and in 1758 moved to 
Claverack, where they remained while Mr. M'Vicar 
was absent with the army ; the family then went to 
Albany, and from thence to Oswego. 

The description of this romantic journey, in boat?, 
from Schenectady, is one of Mrs. Grant's most plea- 
sing efforts. In ISOS she published, in London, her 
youthful reminiscenses, in the work entitled ''Me- 
moirs of an American Ladjj.'' This attracted great 
attention in London, and rendered her extensively 
known in this country. It is the only work of the kind 
which gives us a faithful picture of the manners of 
the early settlers of the province of New- York. In- 
deed, but for this, there would be a complete chasm 
in our social history of those times. The state of so- 
ciety and manners in the province of New- York, and 
particularly in Albany — her anecdotes of the Schuy- 
lers, Van Rensselaers, Cuylers, and other distinguish- 
ed families of that city — gave popularity and interest 
to the Memoirs. 

In 1810 she removed from London to Edinburgh, 
where, for 30 years, her house was the resort of the 
best society of the place. The Americans who visited ' 
Scotland considered it quite a duty to pay their re- 
spects to Mrs. Grant ; and she always received them i 
with marked attention. She died in 1838, calm and i 
happy, at the age of 85 years. 



GRANT THORBURN. 217 

I was in Edinburgh in 1834. On the 5th of Febru- 
ary, at 11 o'clock in the morning, I called to see this 
venerable lady. The bell was answered by a neat and 
tidy Scotch lassie. 

" Is Mrs. Grant at homel" I inquired. 

**She is," answered the lassie, "but never sees 
company till after two o'clock !" 

As she was then in her eightieth year, I thought 
perhaps she was still in bed. 

" Is she up ?" I asked again. 

*' She is." 

" Is she dressed ?" 

" She is." 

You know, that among the ladies, being dressed 
means more than merely throwing a gown over the 
shoulders. I had travelled a long way through the 
Scotch mist, and was loth to lose this opportunity, 
which I knew would never return. I took out my 
card, saying — 

" Please give this to your mistress, and say to her 
that I shall consider it a particular favor if she will 
GRANT me only three minutes' conversation." 

The girl returned immediately, saying — 

** Will you please to walk up stairs, sir 1" 

In the middle of an elegant parlor sat the old lady, 
her back to the fire ; and before her a large desk, cov- 
ered with books and writing materials. 

" Be so good, sir," said she, " as to help yourself 
to a chair and sit down by me. I am not now so able 
to wait upon my friends as I was sixty years ago." 
19 



218 REMINISCENCES OF 

I was going to apologise for intruding upon her 
hours of sechision, when she interrupted me, by — 

** Stop, if you please, sir !" 

Then raising my card, which was printed, *' Grant 
Thorburn, New-York," and placing her finger upon 
the word "New-York," said : 

" That is a passport to me, at any hour." 

We sat and conversed for hours, which seemed but 
as minutes. She spoke of the time when Niagara 
was the only fort on the northern frontier — she refer- 
red to the times when the Van Rensselaers, Schuy- 
lers, Van Cortlands and Cuylers were her playmates 
at school. Gen. Hamilton's wife, (a Schuyler) who 
yet lives in the enjoyment of a vigorous old age, was 
among the number. When I told her I had the plea- 
sure of being personally acquainted with many of the 
descendents of these worthies, and that they were in 
no wise degenerated, her eyes glistened with pleasure. 

Mrs. Grant's "American Lady" was republished 
about eight years ago, I think, by Dearborn. This 
book should be in the library of every member of the 
Empire State, and in the hands of every man, woman 
and child who have a drop of Dutch blood in their 



^1 



GRANT TIIORBURN. 219 



Tlie Iviiig and Iiis Scotch Cook. 

"He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll, 
'* Assuming thus a rank unknown before — 
"Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church." 

The witty earl of Rochester being in company 
with king Charles II. his queen, chaplain, and some 
ministers of state, after they had been discoursing 
on business, the king suddenly exclaimed — " Let our 
thoughts be unbended from the cares of state, and 
give us a generous glass of wine, tliat cJieerctJi, as the 
Scripture saith, God and many The queen hearing 
this, modestly said she thought there could be no 
such text in the Scriptures, and that the idea was 
but little else than blasphemy. The king replied 
that he was not prepared to turn to the chapter and 
verse, but was sure he had met with it in his Scrip- 
ture readin'g. The chaplain was applied to, and he 
was of the same opinion as the queen. Rochester, 
suspecting the king to be right, and being no friend 
to the clergy,* slipped out of the room, to inquire 
among the servants for a Bible. [A pretty king, by 
the grace of God, and defender of the faith ! and a 
pretty chaplain to a king that could not muster a Bible 
between them !] The servants named David, the 

* The majority of them, at that day, were a disgrace to their pro- 
! fession. They are not much better now. In the Commercial Adver- 
tiser is an account of a curate, the Rev. H. M , prosecuting his 

kept mistress for extorting- money from him, after he had thrown her 
off and taken up with two or three others of those frail sisters. 



220 REMINISCENCES OF 

Scotch cook, who they said always carried a Bible 
about him. David being called, recollected both the 
text and where to find it. Rochester told David to 
be in waiting, and returned to the king. This text 
was still the topic of conversation, and Rochester 
proposed to call in David, who, he said, he found 
was well acquainted with the Scriptures. David was 
called, and being asked the question, produced his 
Bible and read the text ; it was from the parable of 
the trees in the wood going forth to appoint a king 
over them — Judges, 9th chapter and 13th verse — 
*' And the vine said unto them, should I leave my 
wine, which cheereth God a?id man, and go to be pro- 
moted over the trees?" The king smiled, the queen 
asked pardon, and the chaplain blushed. Rochester 
then asked this Doctor of Divinity if he could inter- 
pret the text, now it was produced % The chaplain 
was mute. The earl therefore applied to David for 
the exposition. The cook immediately replied, ** How 
much wine cheereth man " — looking Rochester in his 
eyes, who perhaps David had seen fou before — 
"your lordship knoweth ; and that it cheereth God, 
I beg leave to say, that under the Old Testament dis- 
pensation there were meat-offerings and drink-offer- 
ings ; the latter consisted of v^^ine, which was typical 
of the blood of the Mediator, which, by a metaphor, 
was said to cheer God, as he was well pleased in the 
way of salvation that he had appointed, whereby his 
justice was satisfied, his law fulfilled — his mercy 
reigned, his grace triumphed, all his perfections har- 



GRANT TIIOREURN. 221 

monized, the sinner was saved, and God in Christ 
glorified." 

The king looked astonished — the queen shed tears 
— the chaplain looked confounded — and Rochester 
applauded. After some very severe reflections upon 
the doctor, Rochester gravely moved that his majesty 
would be pleased to send the chaplain into the kitch- 
en to turn cook, and that he would make this cook 
his chaplain. 

Now, by way of conclusion to this historical fact^ 
I will only remark that this same cook is a just spe- 
cimen of what the great majority of the Scottish pea- 
santry are at this present day. Few of them learn 
more at school than to read the Bible and write their 
own name. But the beautiful and sublime language 
in which the narrative is conveyed — the concise yet 
true descriptions of men and matter, &c. — make 
those whose Bible was their school-book, and who 
have made it their companion by the way, to be 
wiser than their teachers — to be honest inquirers after 
the truth, and to thirst after scientific knowledge, as 
!the stricken deer pants for the cooling stream. 
Hence, in the heather hills among the shepherds, and 
in the lowlands among the ploughmen of Scotland, 
you will find thousands deeply read in almost every 
science and language. They dive into the bowels of 
every science in which they engage. They are the 
most profound engineers, the most scientific garden- 
ers and botanists, the most learned physicians, sur- 
geons and anatomists, profound scholars, learned, in- 
19* 



222 REMINISCENCES OF 

dependent, and conscientious preachers of righteous- 
ness. Look how they stand at the present day. 
They are not priests for tithes, and bishops for pro- 
motion ; for by them the Gospel is preached — almost 
exclusively — only to the poor. Now I challenge all 
the popes, cardinals and deists on earth to produce 
as many Bibles in any country in Europe as there are 
to be found in twenty miles square of Scotland; it is, 
therefore, a fair inference that the Bible only makes 
them differ from the ferocious Spaniard, the German 
serf, and the Russian boor. 

The present policy of the crowned heads, popes, 
bishops and prelates of Europe, is to blot the name 
of republic from the earth. This government being 
destroyed, their end is accomplished. For this pur- 
pose, the church of Rome — always the right hand 
agent of tyrants — is engaged, and is now in the full 
tide of successful experiment. The majority formed 
our government, and the majority can destroy it. 
From present appearances this majority will soon be 
Romanists. Our political aspirants will join the pope, 
or the devil, provided he secures for them a score of 
votes. Our Judas Americans will help to drive the 
Bible from the Protestant schools ; and as one good 
turn deserves another, the whole fraternity of Jesu- 
its, friars, cardinals, capuchins, confessors, curates, 
priests and pretenders, with the lazzaroni at their 
backs, will join to raise these Judases aforesaid to 
the highest offices in the church and state. Besides, 
the ignorant peasantry from Catholic countries are 



GRANT THORBURN. 223 

landing on our shores at the rate of nearly one thou- 
sand per day, and, by means of perjury and political 
swindling, get naturalized in three months ; then the 
votes of these poor ignorant emigrants tell as much 
at an election as the votes of the native born Ameri- 
cans ; and unless the natives unite and bestir them- 
selves they will soon be in the minority. Let every 
man, then, who wishes to perpetuate our institutions, 
support the native ticket. If every city, town and 
village could boast a James Harper at its head, we 
should soon have less of the ten-days-citizen making. 

I suppose now some of my readers will smile, and 
say, Why, he talks like an American, while he was 
imported from Scotland himself All true, but while 
Washington was President I became a citizen ; be- 
sides, in the interim I have married two yankee 
girls, and that's being naturalized enough, I think, 
in all conscience. And, if I can help it, I don't wish 
to see this beautiful country — where I have eaten so 
many pumpkin pies — turned into a habitation for 
devils, where the priests, like the locusts of Egypt 
and Italy, eat up every green thing. 

In Ireland, the soil and climate are good ; the pea- 
santry are ignorant, and live miserably. In Scotland 
the soil is poor, the climate indifferent ; the pea- 
santry are intelligent, and live comfortably. What 
maketh them to differ? In knowledge there lieth 
strength. 



224 REMINISCENCES OF 

Rides on liong-lslaiid. 

"Scenes must be beautiful, vvhicli, daily view'd, 
" Please daily, and wliese novelty survives 
"Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years; 
"Praise jusily due to those that I describe." 

Cross at Peck-slip, Grand-street, or any of the fer- 
ries to Williamsburg ; turn your horse with his head 
to the northeast, go ahead, keeping the river on your 
left hand, and a smooth, quiet and beautiful road will 
open to your view, whereon you may ride to Astoria 
in forty minutes. On the way you will pass many 
thriving farms, gardens cultivated by Germans, men, 
women and children in the same costume in which 
they were imported fifty years ago. You cross the 
Corporation farms, within a few yards of the Asylum, 
where you may see six hundred orphans, from one to 
twelve years of age — all neat, clean, happy and or- 
derly : this is the most interesting spectacle to be 
seen in America. You then go through Ravens- 
wood, and a quarter-of-a-mile farther brings, you to 
Thorburn's Garden. There eveiy one who wears a 
clean shirt, and is not drunk, has free access ; and 
there, among plants foreign and exotic, you may find 
your old friend Grant, who made bouquets for some of 
your grandmothers when they used to dance in the 
City Assembly-Room in the City Hotel, Broadway, 
forty-four years ago. There I have seen them^ spin 
round the chalk circles on the floor like beautiful 
birds of Paradise, whose gravity seemed too light to 
keep them on the earth ; but now they are as old and 



GRANT THORBURN. 225 

Stiff as myself, and what's worse, some of the foolish 
among them wear flaxen wigs, like old sheep dressed 
in lambs' wool. But this is a digression, and we re- 
turn to the road. Leaving the green-house, dahlias, 
and sensitive plants, continue your course northeast, 
which will bring you straight through the main street 
of Astoria ; from thence lies before you a new, level, 
straight, and beautiful road to Flushing toll-gate ; 
but don't enter Flushing, for this will cost you four 
or five shillings, which is absolutely more than some 
of their apple-trees are worth. Tack about just this 
side of the toll-gate, keep a southwest course — it's a 
fine road — and an hour's easy drive will bring you 
up at the Dutch Church in Newtown, then keep to 
the northwest, which will bring you on a good road 
to Williamsburgh. 

These roads which I have described are now lite- 
rally strewed with flowers from the cherry, peach, 
and apple-trees with which they are lined. How 
much more sociable, comfortable and reasonable is 
a drive on these roads, than going up the Third Ave- 
nue to Harlsem, where you encounter meat-carts, 
dirt-carts, brick-carts, and hog-carts, with wild horses 
driven by savage men, members of the Spartan band, 
and of the honorable fraternity of Mgh-hinders in the 
Bowery, running foul, locking wheels, upsetting and 
downsetting the whole family compact — besides dust, 
flies, musquitoes, sheep, goats, and oxen, with all the 
plagues of Egypt at their back. Here you may drive 
seven miles without even meeting a sober-sided old 
Dutch wagon. 



226 REMINISCENCES OF 



An Apology for tlie Friends, or Tribiite to W^orth. 

"Are domestic comforts dead? 
"Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled? 
" Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame 
"Good sense, good health, good conscience and good fame 

The following just eulogy on the Society of Friends 
I read from Chambers' Edinburgh Journal: — "In 
days gone by," says he, "if I wished to point to a 
model where wealth seems to have been accumu- 
lated for the sole purpose of doing good, I would 
hold up to admiration the people called Quakers. 
They are wealthy, almost to a man ; and where, 
throughout Christendom, in its various ramifications, 
is there a body of people who have done so much 
good, and with so much disinterestedness, not choos- 
ing their own connections as the sole recipients of 
their bounty, but extending it4o every shade of reli- 
gious creed. In the proper and legitimate uses of 
wealth, I present this people as a model worthy of 
general imitation. The late venerated Kichard Rey- 
nolds, of Bristol, who had amassed a princely for-, 
tune in the iron trade, looked upon himself merely 
as the agent of the Almighty. His entire income, 
after deducting the moderate expenses of his family, 
was devoted to benevolence : and he thought his 
round of duty still incomplete, unless he devoted his 
time also. He deprived himself of slumber, to watch 
the bed of sickness and pain, and to administer con- I 
solation to the heart bruised with affliction. On one I' 



GRANT THORBURN. 227 

occasion he wrote to a friend in London, requesting 
to know what object of charity remained, stating 
that he had not spent the whole of his income. His 
friend informed him of a number of persons confined 
in prison for small debts. He paid the whole, and 
swept the miserable mansion of its distressed ten- 
ants. Most of his donations were enclosed in a 
blank cover, bearing the modest signature of *A 
Friend.' A lady once applied to him on behalf of 
an orphan, saying, 'When he is old enough, I will 
teach him to name and thank his benefactor.' *Nay, 
friend,' replied the good man, * thou art wrong; we 
do not thank the clouds for rain. Teach him to look 
higher, and to thank Him who giveth both the 
clouds and the rain. My talent is the meanest of all 
talents — a little sordid dust ; but as the man in the 
parable was accountable for his one talent, so am I 
accountable to the great Lord of all.'" 

A FRIENDLY HINT. 

An elderly gentleman, accustomed to indulge in 
frequent potations of bi^andy, entered the bar-room 
of an inn in the pleasant city of Hudson, where sat 
a grave Quaker warming his feet by the fire. The 
old toper, lifting a pair of green spectacles on his 
forehead, rubbing his infirm eyes, and calling for a 
hot brandy toddy, remarked to the Quaker, as he 
seated himself by the fire, that his eyes were getting 
weaker, and that even his spectacles didn't seem to 
do 'em any good. '* I'll tell thee, friend," replied the 



228 REMINISCENCES OF 

Quaker, "what I think; if thee was to wear thy 
spectacles over thy mouth for a few months thy ; 
eyes would get sound again." 

Speaking of the Friends reminds me of a remark 
which fell from the lips of Judge M'Lain, of Penn- ^ 
sylvania, some twenty years ago. On his retiring i 
from the bench he delivered a valedictory address, 
in which he remarked that, during sixty years he 
had stood at the bar and sat on the bench, only one 
case in which the parties belonged to the Society of ; 
Friends had come before him. It has been remark- ' 
ed of them, that they feed the poor of all religious 
sects, while they themselves neither ask, need, nor 
receive assistance from any. 

For the past fifty years the world has been flood- 
ed with new systems of domestic and political eco- ■, 
nomy, all professing to improve and ameliorate the I 
condition of society. Witness Fanny Wright and 
Robert Owen. Why do not these reformers make 
short work of it, and just hold up to the gaping ! 
throng, as w^orthy of their imitation, and of all their 
acceptation, the beautiful system of punctuality^ 
simplicity and domestic economy as practised by 
the Society of Friends 1 Theirs is not now an expe- 
riment ; it has been in practical operation for cen- 
turies, and it now works as well as it did in the days j 
of Barkley and George Fox. The works of God, in ; 
all places of his dominions, are governed by the laws ' 
of punctuality. We cannot deviate from this law \ 
without drawing down a penalty on our heads. The 



GRANT THORBITRN. 229 

children of the Friends, from the breast to their bu- 
rial, are nurtured in the rules of punctuality. As it 
grows with their growth, it requires no extra effort 
to lead them in the right path. For instance, if a 
child is trained to retire at 8 A. m. it soon becomes a 
habit. It is owing to this principle of punctuality 
in the domestic circle that every member of the family 
must be home, and retire at a stated hour — that 
they are not exposed to the temptations of the thea- 
tre, the brawls of the tavern, or the damnation of the 
gambling-table. The instances are very rare, in- 
deed, of a young man belonging to the Society of 
Friends being caught in a street brawl. 

I remember, when I came first to New- York in 
1794, that the only watch-house then in the city was 
kept in the basement of the house on the south cor- 
ner of Broad and Wall-streets. As I lived in the 
neighborhood for many years, and as I had never 
seen a watch-house in Scotland, I used to go of an 
evening, now and then, after I quitted work, to view 
human nature in all its wild and frantic tricks when 
left to its own guidance. The captain of the watch 
was a sober-sided old Dutchman, and as he under- 
stood Scotch, he and I got warm friends. Conversing 
about the characters which were nightly brought in 
by his scouts, he remarked that during eighteen 
years he had been captain of the watch he never saw 
a man, either old or young, belonging to the Society 
of Friends ,brought into the watch-house, except only 
in one solitary instance ; and, on investigation, it 
20 



230 REMINISCENCES OF 

turned out that he was seized on by mistake, and 
was discharged immediately. 

And these are the mild, peaceful and unassuming 
mortals whom the pilgrim fathers saw fit to perse- 
cute even unto death. Having themselves fled from 
persecution in England, and thus having learned the 
art, they thought they would try their hand on their 
peace-loving neighbors the Quakers. I wonder not 
at their burning the ugly old women for witches ; 
for, if fame speaks true, the Yankees are mighty 
fond of the young and the honnie ones, and may be 
they resolved in town meeting that no other should 
flourish on their soil; and I verily believe this 
must be the fundamental reason why there are so 
many honnie lasses about the Lowell factories at the 
present day. 



Romance in Real Life* 

No. 1, 

" 'Tis time that you should take a wife, 
" As real partner in your life." 

"Married, on Tuesday," (not last,) "by Rev. Wm. 
Ask, Thos. Mowitt and Charlotte Conroy, both of 
this city." 

The above marriage was consummated in this city 
on last Tuesday week — some years ago ; and thereby 



GRANT THOEBURN. 231 

iiangs a tale of the marvellous. Mr. Mowitt was a 
respectable shoemaker, who kept several men em- 
ployed, and among the rest was John Pelsing, who 
had ingratiated himself so much in his favor by his 
faithfulness, industry and sobriety, that he took him 
in partnership about three years since, and had. no 
cause to regi'et his kindness. From that time Mr. 
Mowitt and Mr. Pelsing were constant friends and 
companions, and boarded in the same house, until 
about twelve months ago, when one day they were 
subpcEnaed on a Coroner's jury, about to be held over 
the body of a man that had been taken out of the 
river at the foot of Maiden-lane. The deceased had 
all the appearance of having been a regular dock 
loafer, and it was the opinion of all present that he 
had fallen into the slip while in a state of intoxica- 
tion; but the verdict which was presently given was 
merely "Found drowned." 

The jury being dismissed, Mr. Mowitt turned round 
to look for his friend and fellow juror, who had been 
at his side till that moment; but he was gone, and 
he thoughthesawhim running at full speed up Maiden- 
lane. This struck him as being curious, and also re- 
minded him of another curious fact — at least curious 
as connected with his sudden flight — namely, that 
when Mr. Pelsing had first glanced at the face of the 
corpse, he started and turned deadly pale. Mr. M. 
then proceeded to his boarding-house, and thence to 
the store to look for his partner, but he had not been 
to either, nor did he return ; and nothing could be 



232 REMINISCENCES OF 

heard of or from liim. Mr. M. gave up all further 
inquiries, thinking there must have been some myste- 
rious connection between Mr. Pelsing and the man 
that was found drowned; and that in consequence 
thereof Mr. Pelsing had, in all probability, made 
away with himself 

So matters rested till a certain day last summer, 
when a lady called on Mr. Mowitt at liis store, and 
asked for Mr. Pelsing. She was told the particulars 
of his story. 

"And has he not been here since 1" she inquired. 

**Not since," was the reply. 

"I know he has!" returned the lady. 

"He has not, I assure you — at least not to my 
knowledge," replied Mn Mowitt. 

"But I am positive !" said the lady. 

" What proof have you of it 1" inquired Mr. M. 

"The best in the world!" returned the lady; "for 
I am here, and Mr. Pelsing and myself are one and 
the same person !" 

And, strange as it may seem, such was the fact. 

The question then was, whether Mr. Pelsing was a 
gentleman or a lady; and it turned out that she was 
a lady, and that her name w^as Charlotte Conroy; and 
furthermore, that she was the widow of the man who 
was found drowned. She then stated that her husband 
was a shoemaker in Philadelphia ; that she had been 
two years married ; that her husband, whose name 
was Conroy, took to drinking and treated her badly ; 
having no children she used to spend her leisure 



GRANT THORBURN. 233 

hours sitting by and stitching shoes for her husband 
intending, as soon as she could finish a shoe, to leave 
the drunken man and work her way through the world 
alone. Having equiped herself in men's clothes, she 
left her lord and master and soon arrived in New- 
York. Her success as journeyman, foreman and 
partner, we have seen above. As soon as the Coron- 
er's inquest was finished, she started for Philadelphia, 
where she learned that her husband — who had be- 
come a wandering loafer — had, a week before, set out 
for New- York, where, instead of finding an injured 
wife, he found a watery grave. 

The finale of this romantic affair was, that Mr. 
Mowitt requested Mrs. C. to make his house her 
home; and finding that he loved Mrs. Conroy even 
better than Mr. Pelsing, he proposed a partnership 
for life, which treaty was ratified by their becoming 
man and wife in a few days thereafter. 

This is perhaps the first instance on record wherein 
a wife performed the office of a Coroner's juryman 
on the body of her own husband. The lady, by the 
way, is very goodl-ooking, and still on the safe side 
of thirty. 



20^ 



234 REMINISCENCES OF 

Romance in Real liife. 

No. 2. 

" From Susquehaunah's utmost springs, 
" Where savasfc tribes pursue their game, 

" His blanket lied with yellow strings, 
" A shepherd of the forest came."— Freneau. 

Having spent an hour in company with the hero- 
ine of this story on the day of her arrival in New- 
York, and being privy to some of the facts, I think 
they are worth preserving. 

On a certain fine Sabbath evening we were wit- 
nesses of an incident equally interesting and painful. 
Many people have denounced Shakespeare's Othello 
as too unnatural for probability. It can hardly be 
credited that such a fair, beautiful and accomplished 
woman as Desdemona is represented to have been, 
could have deliberately wedded such a blackamoor as 
Othello; but if we ever entertained any incredulity 
upon the subject, it has all been dissipated by the 
occurrence of which we are about to speak. 

About two years ago, an Indian of the Chippewa 
nation — formerly said to have been a man of some 
rank among his tribe, but now a missionary of the 
Methodist Church among his red brethren — was sent 
to England to obtain pecuniary aid for the Indian 
mission cause in Upper Canada. What was his na- 
tive cognomen — whether it was "Red Lightning," 
"Storm King," or " Walk-in-the-Water," — we know 
not; but in plain English he is known as Peter Jones. 



GRANT THORBURN. 235 

An Indian is a rare spectacle in England. Poets and 
romancers have alike invested the primitive sons of 
the American forest with noble and exalted charac- 
teristics, which are seldom discernible to the duller 
perceptions of plain matter-of-fact people, and which 
English eyes could alone discover in the hero of the 
present story. But no matter. Mr. Peter Jones was 
not only a missionary from the wilderness, and, we 
doubt not, a pious and useful man among his own peo- 
ple, but he was a honafide Indian, and of course was 
made a lion of in London. He was feasted by the 
rich and the great; carriages and servants in livery 
awaited his pleasure and bright eyes sparkled when 
he was named; he was looked upon as a great chief 
— a prince — an Indian King; and many young ladies 
who had never passed beyond the sound of Bow- 
bells, dreamed of the charms of solitude amid the 
great wilds — "the antres vast and desolate wilds" — 
of the roaring of the mighty cataracts and the bound- 
ing of buffaloes over the illimitable prairies — of noble 
chieftains leading armies of plumed and lofty war- 
riors, dusky as the proud forms of giants in twilight 
— of forays and stag-hunts, and bows and arrows, and 
the wild notes of the piercing war-hoop in those hal- 
cyon days when, unsophisticated by contact with the 
pale face, 

"Wild in woods the noble savage ran," 

and all that sort of thing, as Matthews would most 
unpoetically have wound ofifs uch a flourishing sentence. 



236 REMINISCENCES OF 

" In rrowds the ladies to his levees ran — 
" All wished to gaze upon the tawny man ; 
" Happy were those who saw his stately stride — 
" Tiirice happy those who tripp'd it at his side." 

Among others who may have thought of kings' bar- 
baric pearls and gold, was the charming daughter of 
a gentleman of Lambeth, near London, of wealth and 
respectability; but she thought not of wedding an 
Indian, even though he were a great chief, or half a 
king — not she ! But Peter Jones saw, or thought he 
saw — for Indian Cupids are not blind — that the lady 
had a susceptible heart. Avaihng himself, therefore, 
of a ride with this fair creature, he said something to 
her which she then cliose not to understand, but told 
it to her mother. He also sought other opportunities 
of saying similar things, which the damsel could not 
comprehend — before him — but she continued to re- 
peat them to her mother. Peter sought an interview 
with the mother, but it was refused ; he repeated 
the request, but was still refused, although in a 
less positive manner. Finally an interview was grant- 
ed him with the mother, the result of which was, that 
before Jones embarked on his return to his native 
woods, it was agreed that they might breathe their 
thoughts to each other across the water on paper. 
Thus was another point gained. But — to make a 
long story short — a meeting was agreed upon to take 
place in this city with a view of marriage. The idea 
is very unpleasant with us of such ill-sorted mixtures 
of colors; but prejudices against red and dusky skins 
are not so strong in Europe as they are here; they 
do not believe in England that 



GRANT THORBURN. 237 

" Those brown tribes who snuff the desert air, 
"Are consin-german to the wolf and bear." 

The proud Britons, moreover, when conquered by 
Julius Ca3sar, were red men. What harm in their 
becoming so again] But we must hasten our story. 
On a fine August morning, a beautiful young lady 
with fairy form, "grace in her step and heaven in 
her eye," stepped on shore at one of our docks, from 
the packet-ship United States, attended by two cler- 
ical friends of high respectability, who, by the way, 
were no friends of her romantic enterprise. She 
waited with impatience for the arrival of her prince- 
ly lover till the end of the week; but he came not. 
Still she doubted not his faith; and as the result 
proved, she had no reason to doubt. On Sabbath 
morning Peter Jones arrived, and presented himself 
before his mistress. The meeting was affectionate, 
though becoming, and the day was passed by them 
together in the interchange of conversation, thoughts 
and emotions, which we leave to those better skilled 
in the romance of love than ourselves to imagine. 

Though a Chippewa, Peter Jones was nevertheless 
a man of business, and had a just notion of the value 
and importance of time. He might have heard of the 
old adage, "There's many a slip," «Scc. or of another, 

A bird in the hand," &;c. but that matters not. He 
took part with much propriety in the religious exer- 
cises of the John-street Church where he happened 
to be present, which services were ended at nine 
o'clock by an impressive recitation of the Lord's 



238 REMINISCENCES OF 

Prayer in the Chippewa dialect. Stepping into the 
house of a friend near by, we remarked a very unu- 
sual ingathering of clergymen and divers ladies and 
gentlemen. We asked a reverend friend if there was 
to be another religious meeting there. 

"No," he replied, "it is a wedding." 

"A wedding!" we exclaimed with surprise. "Pray, 
who are the parties!" 

"Peter Jones, the Indian missionary," he replied, 
"and a sweet girl from England !" 

It was then evident to our previously unsuspecting 
eyes that an unwonted degree of anxious and curious 
interest prevaded the countenances of the assembled l! 
group. In a short time chairs were placed in a sus- 
picious position at the head of the drawing-room, their ; 
backs to the pier-table. A movement was next percep- 
tible at the door, which instantly drew all eyes to the 
spot; and who should enter but the same tall Indian 
whom we had recently seen in the pulpit, bearingupon 
his arm the light, fragile and delicate form of the young 
lady before mentioned, her eyes dropping modestly 
upon the carpet and her face fair as a lily. Upon their 
entrance a distinguished clerg^^man rose up and ad- 
dressed the parties upon the subject of marriage — its 
propriety, convenience and necessity to the welfare 
of society and human happiness. This brief and per- 
tinent address being ended, the reverend gentleman 
stated the purpose for which the couple had presented 
themselves and demanded if any person or persons 
present could show cause why the proposed union 



GRANT THORBURN. 239 

should not take place : if so, they were requested to 
make their objections then, or for ever after hold their 
peace. A solemn pause ensued; but nothing was 
heard save a few smothered sighs. There they stood, 
the objects of deep and universal interest — indeed, 
we may add of commiseration. Our emotions were 
tremulous and painful. A stronger contrast was 
never seen. She was dressed in white and adorned 
with the sweetest simplicity; her face as white as the 
dress and gloves she wore, rendering her ebon tresses 
— placed a la Madonna on her fair forehead — still 
darker. He in rather a common attire, a tall, dark, high- 
boned, muscular Indian; she a little, delicate European 
lady. He a hardy son of the forest; she accustomed 
to every luxury and indulgence^— well educated, ac- 
complished and well beloved at home — possessing a 
"handsome income — leaving her comforts, the charms 
of civilized and cultivated society, and sacrificing them 
all for the cause she had espoused. The fair damsel 
was now about to make a self-immolation, and far 
away from country and kindred and all the endear- 
ments of a fond father's home, to resign herself into 
the arms of a man of the woods who could not appre- 
ciate the sacrifice. A sweeter bride we never saw : 
we almost grew wild. The remembrance of Othello, 
of Hyperion and the Satyr, and the bright-eyed Hin- 
doo and the Funeral Pile, now flashed across our mind 
with renewed horror. She looked like a drooping 
flower beside a rugged hemlock! and we longed to 
interpose and rescue her. But it was none of our 



240 REMINISCENCES OF 

business; she was in the situation by choice, and was 
among her friends. 

The ceremony went on. She promised to " love, 
honor, and obey" the Chippewa; and all tremulous 
as she stood, we heard the Indian and herself pro- 
nounced " man and wife !" It was the first time we 
ever heard those words sound hateful to our ears. 
All, however, knelt down and united with the cler- 
gyman in a prayer for blessings upon her, that she 
might be sustained in her undertaking, and have 
health and strength to endure her destined hardships 
and privations. The room resounded with the deep- 
toned, heartfelt, and tearful response of ** Amen." 
The audience then rose, and after attempting, with 
moistened eyes, to extend their congi^atulations to 
the happy pair, slowly and pensively retired. In a 
few days the sweet creature was on her way to the 
wilds of Upper Canada — the Indian's bride ! 

Such is the history of a case of manifest and pal- 
pable delusion. Peter Jones cannot say with Othello, 
that '* she loved him for the dangers he had passed." 
The young lady was not blinded by the trappings of 
military costume, or the glare of martial glory ; but 
she was a very pious girl, whose whole heart and 
soul had been devoted to the cause of heathen mis- 
sions, and she thus threw herself into the cause, and 
resolved to love the Indian for the work in which he 
was engaged. 

For our own part, we must say we wish he had 
never crossed the Niagara. But " the die is cast," 



GRANT THORBURN. 241 



and the late comely and accomplished Miss F- 



of London, is now the wife of Peter Jones, of the 
Chippewas. But that she was deluded, and knew 
nothing of the life she was to encounter, there can be 
no doubt. As an evidence of this, she brought out 
furniture sufficient for an elegant household estab- 
lishment. China vases for an Indian lodge ! and 
Turkey carpets to spread on the morasses of the Ca- 
nadian forest ! Instead of a mansion we fear she 
found the wigwam ; and the manufacture of brooms 
and baskets instead of embroidery. 

Injustice to the witnesses of the scene, however, 
it is proper to state that a few of her real friends in 
this city — those into whose immediate society she 
was cast — labored diligently to open her eyes to the 
real state of the case, and the life of hardship and 
trial which she was inevitably destined to lead. Poor 
girl ! we wish she was by her father in Lambeth, sin- 
gle, and Peter Jones preaching to the Chippewas, 
with the prettiest squaw among them for his wife. 

It may be satisfactory to the reader, however, to 
be informed, that Mrs. Jones is now living in a very 
comfortable framed house, within thirteen miles of 
Toronto, Upper Canada, with a family of three or 
four little ones about her, seemingly contented and 
happy, assisting her husband in his labors of love 
among their Indian neighbors. 



21 



242 REMINISCENCES OF 

Traditions of tlie War of American Independence. 

Extract from the Journal of a British Officer. 



THE DESERTER. 

" The men who, on the battled plain and raging flood, 
" Went forth to vindicate the right, their blood 
" Pour'd forth like water, that they might maintain 
" Of truth and honor'd purity the reign." 

During the summer of 1780, when, in spite of the 
failure of Burgoyne's expedition, hopes were still 
entertained of a successful termination of the strug- 
gle, it was customary for certain galleys and other 
armed vessels to keep guard in the channel of the 
North River, as far from the out- works of New- York 
as Elizabethtown Point in one direction, and King's 
Bridge in another. It chanced upon a certain day, 
in the month of September, that two of these vessels 
lay at single anchor about four miles from the vil- 
lage of Bergen. They had been stationed there ever 
since the news of Andre's capture reached us; 
whether with the view of facilitatinof his chance of 
escape, or as a point of communication, I know not ; 
but in either case they had achieved but little, when 
on the morning of the 25th of September an event 
occurred which relieved the crew for a moment from 
the tedium of a profitless watch. It was about nine 
o'clock of this morning that the look-out seaman 
called the attention of one of the officers to what 
was passing on shore. The officer immediately 
turned his glass in the specified direction and beheld 



GRANT THOREURN. 243 

coming from Bergen a single horseman, who rode 
as if for Ufe and death, and was directed toward the 
river. He was dressed in the well-known uniform 
of Lee's Legion — one of the best equipped and most 
efficient corps in the American service — and his va- 
lise being strapped at the croop of the saddle, and 
his sword hung by his side, it was evident that some 
cause more urgent than caprice drove him on. 
When first discovered, he was in the act of rounding 
a corner in the woods, so as to enter upon a broad 
and straight road which had been cut through their 
centre, and leading directly to the water's edge, or 
rather to the edge of a reedy swamp which at this 
particular point girded in the Hudson, and branch- 
ing off to the right and left, followed up and down 
the tortuosities of the stream. 

The horseman rode furiously on till he had left the 
corner of the wood about three hundred yards be- 
hind, when he suddenly pulled up. He then un- 
buckled his valise and strapped it across his shoul- 
ders, unslung his sword, drew out the weapon, and 
cast the scabbard and belt from him, and casting 
from time to time an anxious glance to the rear, 
seemed to brace himself, as it were, for some des- 
perate hazard; nor did many minutes elapse ere the 
cause of his apparent anxiety became manifest. His 
preparations were as yet incomplete, when a party 
of dragoons, perhaps twelve or fourteen in number, 
made their appearance, rounding the same angle 
from which he had emerged. They were too far dis- 



244 REMINISCENCES OF 

tant to permit the sound of their voices to be heard, 
but nothing could be more remarkable than the effect 
produced on all parties by so sudden a recognition. 

The fugitive plunged his spurs into the flanks of 
his charger and set ofFagain at the top of his speed. 
The troopers pressed their animals in renewed ex- 
ertion; and the latter being, as it seemed, more fresh 
than the former, the distance between them was 
certainly not increased ; on the contrary, they gained 
upon him so fast that w^ien he reached the margin 
of the swamp not more than sixty or seventy yards 
divided them. 

And now the seamen, w^io had watched the pro- 
ceeding's with feelings not unlike those which are ex- 
perienced by the spectators of a coursing match, 
found themselves called upon to play a part in this 
strange drama. The fugitive threw himself from his 
saddle, rushed into the morass, and shouting aloud 
for help, made at once for the water's edge. Dressed 
as he was, moreover, he did not hesitate to plunge 
into the river and to strike out lustily toward the 
anchorage. In a word, he was a deserter; and as 
both policy and justice required, it became neces- 
sary to afford him every facility of escape. Accord- 
ingly both vessels opened a fire of grape upon the 
dragoons, and a boat was likewise pushed off which 
soon picked up the swimmer, and conveyed him 
safely on board of the nearest galley. Having given 
his name and assigned the common reason for such 
dishonorable conduct as his — that is, that he had been 



GRANT THORBURN. 245 

ill treated by his officers, and was weary of so bad a 
service — he expressed a wish to be passed on to 
New- York ; and he was immediately sent forward 
in a row-boat, under an escort, with a letter from 
the captain testifying to the manner of his arrival. 

There were many circumstances which concurred 
at this time to give every individual instance of de- 
sertion more than its common interest in the eyes of 
the commander-in-chief. In the first place, his cor- 
respondence with Gen. Arnold had led him for some 
time to believe that much dissatisfaction prevailed 
in Washington's army. In the next place, the failure 
of Arnold's plot, and the arrest of Andre, rendered 
him peculiarly sensitive, and induced him to listen 
with crediilous anxiety to every tale or rumor which 
might even seem to confirm hopes which had in re- 
ality no foundation. The fugitive was consequently 
conducted to head-quarters, where he was closely in- 
terrogated as to the disposition of the American 
troops, and above all, concerning the tempers of cer- 
tain officers, of whose fidelity to the Republican 
cause our chiefs had learned to think lightly. The 
new comer was honored with a private interview, 
during which he underwent a long and rigid exami- 
nation. Of this examination nothing was known, 
except that its result was highly favorable to the de- 
serter. The general spoke of him publicly as an in- 
telligent and prudent person, and made no secret of 
his wish to enlist talents so valuable into the service 
of his sovereign. For a while the stranger resisted 
21* 



246 REMINISCENCES OF 

this proposition. He professed to be tired of war, 
and reminded Sir Henry, not unfairly, that from the 
moment he assumed the king's uniform he put a 
halter around his own neck. But the importunities 
of those in power at length prevailed, and he consent- 
ed to accept the same I'ank in the royal army which 
he had borne in the army of the States. He was 
accordingly attached to a corps, of which Arnold 
took the command, composed exclusively of native 
Americans, most of whom were deserters; and 
being strongly recommended to Arnold, as well by 
his own personal demeanor as by the commander-in- 
chief, he became an orderly-sergeant in that offi- 
cer's family. 

Time passed on, and the melancholy news arrived 
that neither entreaties nor threats of retaliation, nor 
offers of exchange, had availed to save the life of 
Andre. He died a traitor's death. It was a hard 
case. AVashington, to be sure, offered to exchange 
Andre for Arnold, but this they could not do. There 
was general lamentation throughout the ranks, min- 
gled with an eager longing for revenge, in which no 
man appeared more earnestly to participate than 
Gen. Arnold. And partly with the view of indulg- 
ing the humor, and partly to effect a diversion in 
favor of Lord Cornwallis, then actively engaged in 
the Carolinas, it was determined to send Arnold's 
legion, together with a few battalions of British re- 
gulars, on an expedition to Virginia. This resolu- 
tion, which was come to at a late hour of the night. 



GRANT THORBURN. 247 

was announced early next morning in general or- 
ders ; and the order itself was obeyed with such re- 
markable promptness, that the men went on board 
without having time to make any preparations what- 
ever, yet the transports lay at their moorings for 
many days ; nor was it until late in October that the 
troops made good their landing, and opened a brief 
and profitless campaign on the shores of the Chesa- 
peake. I often thought that the States had more 
friends than foes among certain officers. 

Fortune so ordered that there was given to me — 
then a very young man — a company in Arnold's le- 
gion, and that the deserter John Champe was at- 
tached to it. I found him to be, as others had repre- 
sented, a remarkably intelligent person. At first, in- 
deed, he proved singularly grave and taciturn ; nay, 
his manner appeared at times to indicate so much of 
moroseness and ill-humor, that I could not avoid 
harboring a suspicion that he already repented of the 
step he had taken. But having been warned of the 
reluctance which accompanied his enlistment, I took 
no notice of his humor ; and as I treated him through- 
out as kindly as circumstances would allow, I flatter- 
ed myself that I had at last succeeded in gaining his 
confidence. It is true that he never evinced a symp- 
tom of cheerfulness, and his dark and saturnine com- 
plexion seemed to mark him as a man naturally 
thoughtful, perhaps designing, yet he was a good 
soldier in his outward appearance at least, and I put 
full confidence in him. How far my expectation?. 



248 REx^IINISCENCES OF 

had or had not been well founded an opportunity 
of determining was never afforded, inasmuch as, the 
second night after the disembarkation, Sergeant 
Champe disappeared. He was sought far and near. 
His arms and knapsack were found, but no one had 
Been him quit the lines; yet he was gone; and ne- 
ver again, during the remainder of the war, was so 
much as a trace of him discovered. 

At last peace came ; and I, having married into a 
respectable Republican family in Virginia, received 
permission to remain in the country after my regi- 
ment had quitted it, for the purpose of settling my 
affairs. I was journeying for this purpose through 
Loudon county, attended by a single servant, on 
horseback, when, toward the close of a summer's 
day I found myself unexpectedly brought to a 
stand-still by the occurrence of three roads leading 
as many different ways. As there was no board or 
sign-post erected for the guidance of travellers, I 
felt as a stranger so circumstanced is apt to feel, a 
good deal puzzled. I looked to the heavens, but did 
not succeed in ascertaining, by any sign afforded 
there, in which direction I ought to turn. After he- 
sitating some time, I finally struck into one of the 
paths which appeared to be somewhat more inviting 
than the rest, and followed it for a while, if not with- 
out misgivings, at all events in good hope that I had 
done right. But the road began by degrees to twist 
and turn, carrying me deeply into the heart of a for- 
est ; and the night was coming on, with every ap- 



GRANT THORBURN. 249 

pearance of a thunder-storm. I began to grow im- 
patient and uneasy, and pressed my jaded beast into 
a trot. But we had made very little progress when 
darkness closed around us — darkness so dense that 
to discern objects at a yard's distance was impossi- 
ble ! What was now to be done ] I called my ser- 
vant to consult. We finally concluded to remain 
where we were ; and having fastened our horses to 
a huge tree, we sat down with our backs against its 
trunk. 

We had not yet finished our preparations for 
spending the night under this tree, when the rain be- 
gan to descend in torrents ; the thunder rolled 
through the woods like a thousand cannon firing in 
platoon, and the blaze of lightning was almost inces- 
sant. I turned round in endeavoring to find a bet- 
ter shelter, but had scarcely done so when I beheld, • 
by a flash of lightning, an opening in the forest, at 
the extremity of which stood a house surrounded by 
a patch of cultivated ground. We untied our horses, 
and guided by the lightning began to advance with 
the utmost caution. We had not proceeded many 
yards ere our course was stopped by a deep ravine 
in front; and the roaring of the water indicated that 
it was traversed by a river of no inconsiderable 
force. I gave my horse to the servant and set out 
alone. Having reached the margin of the river, with 
the lightning for a lamp, I found it traversed by a 
rude bridge. I made toward it, and committing my- 
self to the care of a kind Providence, crawled over 



250 REMINISCENCES OF 

upon my hands and knees. I found myself in an 
open field, in which was a log-house with some rude 
out-buildings clustered about it. As the inmates 
were moving about in the house, my cries soon at- 
tracted their notice, and they hastened to render 
every assistance. The door was immediately opened, 
and a man hurried out wdth a torch in each hand, 
who requested me to lead in the direction where I 
had left the horses. My new acquaintance crossed 
the bridge, and in less than half an hour returned 
with man and horses, both wet and weary. 

If the exertions of the stranger had been worthy 
of praise, his hospitality, now the danger w^as over, 
fully corresponded with them. He could not allow 
master or man to touch the horses, but insisted that 
we should enter the house, where a fire and changes 
of raiment awaited us. He himself led the jaded 
animals to a shed, rubbed them down, and provided 
them with forage. It would have been affectation of 
the worst kind to dispute his pleasure in this in- 
stance ; so I readily sought the shelter of his roof, to 
which a comely dame made me welcome, and busied 
herself in preventing my wishes. Our drenched 
clothes were soon exchanged for suites of my host's 
apparel, and we soon found ourselves seated by a 
blazing fire, by the light of which our hostess laid 
out a well stocked supper-table. I need not say that 
all this was in the hiirhest doGrree comfortable. Yet 

o o 

I was not destined to sit down to supper without 
discovering still greater cause for wonder. 



GRANT THORBURN. 251 

In clue time our host came in, and the first glance 
I cast toward him satisfied me that he was no stran- 
ger; the second glance set every thing like doubt at 
rest. Sergeant Champe stood before me ! 

I cannot say that my sensations on recognizing my 
ci-devant sergeant were altogether agreeable. The 
mysterious manner in which he both came and went 
— the success with which he had thrown a veil over 
his movements — and the recollection that I was the 
guest of a man who was of rather doubtful princi- 
ples, excited in me a vague and undefined alarm, 
which I found it impossible on the instant to conceal. 
I started, and the movement was not lost upon 
Champe. He examined my face closely, and a light 
appearing to. burst in all at once upon his memory, 
he ran toward the spot where I sat, exclaiming — 

** Welcome, welcome. Captain Cameron ! You are 
a thousand times welcome to my roof. You beha- 
ved well to me while under your command, and de- 
serve more hospitality than I possess the power to 
give ; but what I do possess is at your service ; and 
happy am I that Providence has brought us together. 
You have doubtless looked upon me as a two-fold 
traitor, and I cannot blame you ; yet I wish to stand 
well in your estimation, and will, if you please, give 
a faithful narration of the causes which led to my ar- 
rival in New- York, and to my abandonment of the 
British army. But you are tired, from your journey. 
Eat and drink, I pray you, and having slept soundly, 
on the morrow I will endeavor to place my character 



252 REMINISCENCES OF 

in an honorable light in the estimation of the only 
British officer of whose good opinion I am covetous." 

I found my host the next morning the same open, 
candid and hospitable man that he had shown himself 
on first recognizing me. At breakfast he made no al- 
lusion to our conversation of the previous evening ; 
but when he heard me speak of getting our horse.: 
ready, he begged to have a few minutes' conversa- 
tion with me ; upon which, taking a seat beside me, 
he began : 

" You remember under what circumstances I came 
to you in New- York. I came as a deserter ; but, sir, 
I was no deserter ! Mine was a deed unusual, I 
allow, and most suspicious in its coloring ; but it was 
performed not only with the sanction of Gen. Wash- 
ington, but at his positive desire ! Listen, and I will 
tell you all, sir. 

'' You will be at no loss to imagine that the disco- 
very of Arnold's treason created a great sensation 
throughout our army. No man could trust his bro- 
ther. That the general shared in this uneasiness, all 
ranks acknowledged ; but the extent to which this 
feeling, on his part, was carried, remained a secret to 
all, till to me, and me alone, it was communicated. I 
will tell you how this happened, at least, how I my- 
self came to be honored with Washington's con- 
fidence. 

" While Arnold and your commander-in-chief 
were carrying on their infamous correspondence, 
our army, as you doubtless recollect, occupied a po- 



GRANT THORBURN. 253 

sition in the vicinity of Tappan. Lee's legion, of 
which I was the sergeant-major, held the outposts. 
One night, having posted the sentinels and gone 
through with the other duties, I received a message 
from Major Lee that he wished to see me. I found 
him walking his apartment, apparently much excited. 
He asked me to bolt the door. I did so. He then 
turned to me and solicited my attention. 

"'Champe,' said he, *you scarcely need be told 
that if there is a man in the regiment in whom more 
than all the rest I am disposed to place reliance, it is 
yourself. I am going to put all your good qualities to 
the test. I ask from you no pledge to secrecy, be- 
cause I am confident that none is needed !' 

*'I thanked him, and replied, that whatever man 
could do for him or for America, I would at least 
attempt. 

" With his eyes fastened upon mine, he began by 
saying — * Cham.pe, you must desert ! You must go 
over to the enemy !' 

*' I started at this, but before I could interpose a 
word, he went on. 

"'Hear me out,' said he, * and say if you are 
willing to accomplish the wishes of your command- 
er-in-chief; for I am but a medium of communica- 
tion between Washington and yourself. 

" 'You are aware,' he continued, 'of the distress- 
ing consequences of Arnold's treason — of the anxiety 
and misgiving which it occasioned throughout the 
army — and the peril into which it has brought the 
22 



254 REMINISCENCES OF 

life of the EngHsh Major Andre. You cannot, how- 
ever, know till I inform you how the general is af- 
fected by it. I have had with him to-day a long and 
deeply-interesting interview, in which he showed me 

letters from and of New- York, both of 

which represented the plot as widely-extended. The 
defection of Arnold has so shaken the confidence of 
Washington in certain officers, that he knows not 
whom to trust. This he told me to-day with a flushed 
cheek and choking voice. And he added, that it was 
necessary some trusty person should pass to New- 
York, and hold verbal intercourse with the infor- 
mants, and sift the whole to the bottom. But he does 
not intend that the services of his agent shall end 
here. If Arnold could be seized and brought back to 
camp, not only might Andre's life be saved, but there 
would be given such an example as would for ever 
deter all American officers from playing the part of 
traitors. * I am sure. Major Lee,' continued the com- 
mander-in-chief ' you can find among your gallant 
fellows the very person of whom I stand in need.' I 
accepted the proposal ; and, Champe, I named you 
as the man. Are you ready to earn immortal honor 
for yourself, and to do the country a most important 
service by carrying through this delicate and hazard- 
ous scheme for your general V 

" I thanked the major for the good opinion he en- 
tertained of me, and repeated my readiness to at- 
tempt any thing which should not imply disgrace. 
But I begged respectfully to be spared the disgrace- 



GRANT THORBURN. 255 

ful brand of Deserter. Suffice it to'say I was persuad- 
ed. The rest you know. 

" I will now inform you that I succeeded in the 
first part of my mission, regarding the suspicions 
thrown out against certain officers, to the entire satis- 
faction of the commander-in-chief The suspicions 
were groundless. The plan to seize Arnold was fully 
matured, and every arrangement promised a success- 
ful termination. The nisrht of the 3d of October was 

o 

fixed upon for the completion of our project ; but 
that same morning, as you remember, we were or- 
dered to embark, without a moment's notice. Thus 
our — for I had two confederates — well-laid plans to 
carry off the traitor were frustrated. 

** After our disembarcation in the Chesapeake, re- 
flecting that the objects of my mission were at an end, 
I took the first opportunity to leave Arnold's legion, 
for every man of whom — yourself only excepted — 
I entertain the most sovereign contempt. I arrived 
at head-quarters shortly thereafter, and had a private 
interview with the commander-in-chief. He express- 
ed himself highly satisfied with the manner in which 
I had acquitted myself in that delicate affair. I offer- 
ed to join the army again, but this he would not per- 
mit. ' For,' said he, * should any mishap throw you 
into the hands of the British, you would be hung as a 
spy, traitor or deserter.' He then gave me a full and 
honorable discharge, accompanied with a purse heavy 
enough to buy and stock this farm, on which I live in 
peace and happiness with the partner of my bosom." 



256 REMINISCENCES OF 

He now brought out his own horse along with that 
of my own and servant's, and rode a few miles in com- 
pany with us, to put us upon the right path, from 
which we had wandered. We parted with the warm- 
est wishes for each other's happiness both in time and 
in eternity. 



Solomon and tlie Q^ueen of Sheba. 

"The cheek will lose its 'gaudy shade,' 
*' The lusi re of the eye must fade ; 
" The mini! and heart immortal bloom 
" Beyond the precincts of the tomb." 

I recollect a pretty story, which, in the Talmud or 
Gemara, some Rabbin has attributed to Solomon. 

At the foot of the throne stood the queen of 
Sheba; in each hand she held a wreath of flowers; 
the one composed of natural, the other of artificial 
flowers. Art in the labor of the mimic wreath had 
exquisitely emulated the living hues and the variega- 
ted beauties of nature : so that, at the distance it 
was held by the queen for the inspection of the 
king, it was deemed impossible for him to decide — 
as her question imported — which was the natural 
and which the artificial. The sagacious Solomon 
seemed posed ; yet, to be vanquished, though in 
a trifle by a trifling woman, irritated his pride — 
by the by, this was not the first time he had been 



i 



GRANT THORBURN. 257 

quizzed by the ladies, — the son of David — he who 
had written treatises on the vegetable productions 
* from the cedar to the hyssop/ to acknowledge him- 
self outwitted by a woman, with shreds of papers 
and glazed paintings ! The honor of the Monarch's 
reputation for divine sagacity seemed diminished; 
and the whole Jewish court looked solemn and mel- 
ancholy. At length an expedient presented itself to 
the king ; and it must be confessed, worthy of the 
Natural Philosopher. Observing a cluster of bees 
hovering about a window, he commanded that it 
should be opened ; it was opened ; the bees rushed 
into the court and lighted immediately on one of the 
wreaths, while not a single one fixed on the other. 
The decision was not then difficult : the learned 
Rabbins shook their heads in rapture, and the baffled 
Sheba had one more reason to be astonished at the 
wisdom of Solomon. 

This would make a pretty poetical tale. It would 
yield an elegant description and a pleasing moral — 
that the hee only rests on the natural beauties, and 
TiQNeT fixes on the painted flowers, however inimita- 
bly the colors may be laid on. This, applied to the 
ladies, would give it pungency. 



22* 



258 REMINISCENCES OF 



Tlie Middle Duicli Cliurcli' 



"To spare tliee now is past my power, 
" Thou bonnie gem." 

In a brief paragraph yesterday morning, we spoke 
of the ceremonies which took place at the Middle 
Dutch Church on Sunday evening, upon the occasion 
of the final withdrawing of the congregation from 
the venerable pile, and its being about to become 
the new post-office. 

As we have already said, the church was full to 
overflowing. Circumstances of interest will always 
draw together in New- York a large number of 
persons. 

The exercises were commenced with a psalm, 
which Avas accompanied by the organ, and executed 
with solemnity by the choir. A chapter in the Bible 
was read by the Rev. Dr. Knox. The Rev. Dr. De 
Witt then prayed, and in a most feeling and elo- 
quent manner returned thanks to the Almighty for 
the protection he had vouchsafed to the church and 
congregation for so many years — for the good ex- 
amples set by its deceased fathers, for the prosperi- 
ty which had attended that denomination of Chris- 
tians, and for the many streams which had flowed 
from it as a fountain-head. 

Dr. Knox then preached from the Gospel of St. 
John, taking those passages from the fourth chapter, 



GRANT THORBURN. 259 

which described the scene between our Savior and 
the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well. The particu- 
lar portion adapted to this occasion was his de- 
claration that neither at Jerusalem nor on Mount 
Gerizim should there be any worship, but that the 
I time was coming when the true worshippers should 
worship the Father, who is a spirit, and that those 
who worship him would do so in spirit and in truth. 

From this the preacher argued there was no sanc- 
tity in the place of worship itself, that no particular 
sacredness attached to it longer than the worship of 
God was continued there. This point was argued 
and illustrated at some length. He also gave a dis- 
sertation on the Spirit, and elucidated its force and 
cliaracter as displayed in humanity, showing how 
superior and grand were its attributes, if rightly 
exercised. The worth of the soul was evident from 
this. 

A brief sketch of the church about to be closed 
was then given, and the reasons for its being yielded 
by the Consistory. 

The discussion was concise and well written, the 
argument logical and ingenious, and it was one of 
the best efforts which we have lately witnessed from 
this veteran clergyman. 

The Rev. Dr. De Witt followed in a brief address, 
which seemed to come from his inmost soul. It ap- 
pears from the statements made by him, that t e 
1 building was commenced ii 1726, and ope ed for 



260 UEMIXISCENCES OF 

vvhicli were first erected. At the beginning it had no 
galleiy ; two doors were on the west side, and the 
pulpit was on the east. For the first thirty years the 
Dutch language had been exclusively employed in 
its services, and for some years subsequently was 
used one half the time with the English. 

A large number of clergymen, all of them able 
and devoted men, had officiated there, who now 
slept with their fathers, and others of the connec- 
tion who had succeeded them, and whose praise 
was in all the churches, still survived. 

The venerable building had thus passed through 
many and great changes of government, of laws, 
and laneuagre, and thousands of redeemed souls 
had there in times past worshipped the Father in 
spirit and in truth. Some passages of this address 
were highly touching and eloquent, and drew tears 
from many eyes. 

Had it been possible, said Dr. De Witt, to have 
retained a congregation in that part of the town, the 
building would not now be forsaken ; but the com- 
mercial improvements which were constantly occur- 
ring in this great commercial city had occasioned a 
great change of residence, and scarcely any of the 
former worshippers in that house remained behind. 

An opportunity had now offered of disposing of, 
for a time at least, the venerable building, without 
doing the structure any essential injury, and with- 
out disturbing the hallowed remains which rested in 
the vaults around. ' 

I 



GRANT THORBURN. 261 

Another psalm, with the Doxology, was sung, and 
the benediction pronounced both in English and 
Dutch after the formula of the olden time, the last 
words pronounced from the pulpit, as they had also 
been the first, being thus delivered in the language 
of the father-land. 

We believe one fact connected with this building 
is not generally known. In the famous year 1745 
the steeple was struck by lightning and took fire, 
but some resolute persons broke through the cupola 
and soon extinguished it. 

We believe the Post Office department will occu- 
py the church as soon as it can be prepared for its 
reception. 



Merchants of Kcvv-York in 1T74:. 

" The race of yore 

" How they are blotted from the things that be." 

In turning over the leaves of my scrap-book the 
other day, my eye fell upon the following memoran- 
dum. The list is correct, and no doubt will be 
found interesting. It is a list of the names of all the 
Importing Merchants of New-York during the years 
of 1774,'75: 

Garrets Abeel, Joseph Blackwell, Samuel Bonne, 
James Bonne, Robert Bonne, George Bonne, Thomas 



262 REMINISCENCES OF 

Buchanan, "Walter Buchanan, William Butler, Samuel 
Broome, John Broome, James Beekman, Joseph Bull, 
Derick Brinckerhoof, Everet Brancker, Richard 
Brancker, David Beekman, Benjamin Booth, Garret 
Beekman, sen. Garret Beekman, jun. Henry Brevoort, 
Gerardus Beekman, Everet Byvanch, Isaac Corsa, 
Cornelius Cloper, Peter Cloper, Peter T. Curtenius. 
Elias Desbrossus, James Desbrossus, William Down- 
ing, Abraham Duryee, Gerardus Dinking, Thomas 
Ellison ; Walter, John, Samuel, James, and Thomas 
Franklin; George Folloitt, Gilbert Forbes, Edward 
Gould, Ennis Graham, Patrick Gorlat, Joseph Hal- 
lett, Nicholas Hoofman, Andrew Hamersby, Henry 
Haydock, Ebenezer Hazard, Jacob Leroy, Jacob 
Lefferts, Francis Lewis, Gabriel H. Ludlow, William 
Ludlow, Isaac Low, Nicholas Low, George Ludlow, 
Philip Livingston, Edward Laight, Robert Murray, 
James Morton, Charles McEvers, Thomas Moore, 
Peter Messier, William Nelson, Garret Noel, Jere- 
miah Piatt, Daniel Phcenix, James Parsons, Thomas 
Pearsall, Lewis Pintard, John J. Roosevelt, Alexan- 
der Robinson & Co. Henry Ramsen, Thomas Rand- 
all, John Reade, Richard Ray, John Ray, Samuel 
Ray, Isaac Sears, Comfort Sands, Christopher Smith, 
Solomon Simpson, James Seagrove, Oliver Temple- 
ton, TTilliam W. Stick, Henry Van Vleek, Patrick 
Vandevoort, Jacob Van Voorhis, Samuel Verplanck, 
Jacobus Vanzandt, Anthony Van Dam, John Vander- 
belt, Hubert Van Wagner, Henry White, Huge 
Wallace, John Watts, Jacob W^atson, Alexander 



GRANT THORBURN. 263 

Wallace, Richard Yates, Hambleton Young — 103 — 
all dead ! *' Man givetli up the ghost, and where is 
he 1" " Their sons came to honor, and they knew it 
not ; they were brought low, but they perceived it 
not of them !" 

Comfort Sands was the last survivor, and he died, 
I think, about nine years ago. He also was the last 
survivor of a Committee of Sixty, elected in 1774 
to carry into execution the non-importation agree- 
ment ; and he was also the last survivor of a Com- 
mittee of One Hundred, chosen in May, 1775, after 
the Battle of Lexington — the last survivor of Twen- 
ty-one members of the Provincial Congress, chosen 
in November, 1775 — and the last survivor of the 
Committee of Safety, chosen in December, 1775. 

I knew him in 1794. I think he held an office in 
the Custom-House at that time, Avhich was kept in a 
small building in Mill-street. The memory of this 
street, since the renovation of that part of the city 
after the great conflagration, I believe is blotted 
out from the records of this changeable city. The 
only public monument to this sturdy patriot is to be 
found on the walls of every corner-house in^ Sands- 
street, Brooklyn. I know of no monument in New- 
York to any of the heroes of '76, except Montgom- 
ery. We have all our neighbors' business to attend 
to, and of course no time to attend to our own. We 
found money to go whining, crying, and sympathiz- 
ing into Canada, to force their people to become free 
— we could find money (if Mike Walsh speaks true) 



264« REMINISCENCES OF 

to send the Mobiles and Dorrites to sink, bum, and 
destroy Providence — we can find money for the buy- 
ing of fuel to keep the Irish Rej^eal pot boiUng, and 
to help King O'Connel to live sumptuously every 
day, with his crimson cloak and scarlet crown 
squeezing the last herring from the peasant's child, 
and compelling them to live on salt and potatoes 
alone — we can find money in New- York for all 
these things, but none to raise a Monument to 
Washington. 

Thus has the world been gulled for sixty-six years 
past. First it had Wilkes and Liberty, Lord George 
Gordon and Popery, in England, Sacheverell and the 
Bishops, Burdett, Hunts, Cobbett, O'Connell, &c. all 
political swindlers, and full-blooded tyrants as far as 
their little brief authority went. Some of them I 
knew personally. And we ourselves have a pretty 
parcel of political quacks, gouging the flats and 
living on the fools ; speaking greats welling words 
• — like a Kentucky stump-orator — and promising men 
Liberty, while they themselves are the slaves of the 
Devil. 



GRANT THORBUIIN. 265 

From the London Morning Herald. 
A Eonc to Gnaxv. 

" He lik'd the soil, he lik'd the clement skies, 
■" He Ijk'd the verdant hills aud flowery plains, 

" Nor lik'd he less the genius of the land." 

There was among us liere in London some short 
time ago a queer little man, by name Grant Thor- 
burn ; who though he for many years of his boyhood, 
as he himself tells us, swallowed half a pint of snails 
boiled in nev/ milk with a due proportion of oatmeal 
for his breakfast, yet his height was only /our feet 
ten inches^ and his weight not more than ninety-eight 
founds ', and yet he became an object of dread to the 
British government as one of *' the friends of the 
people;" the founder and proprietor of a very pros- 
perous seed-store in New-York; the father of many 
talented and fine grown young men and women ; 
and the veritable original from whom Mr. Gait took 
his notion of ** Laurie Todd /" in fine, the Grant 
Thorburn who was raised in bonnie Scotland, located 
in Yankee-land, immortalized in Eraser's Magazine 
for the months of June and July, in the year of our 
Lord 1833. He was poking about here among all 
sorts of parties and public places for many months; 
he was looked upon generally in all parties whither- 
soever he went, as a pretty considerably interesting, 
though diminutive Lion, and he published his bio- 
graphy in one volume small octavo, with a full 
23 



266 REMINISCENCES 0? 

eng th effigy of his own peculiar person enyelopecl 
in all its manifold and many-folded double-milled 
woollen envelopements. 

Since that time the queer little man has wandered 
back again across the wild Atlantic, to his seed-store 
in New- York ; and there overhauling his note-book 
and recollections, he has published an account of 
what he saw amongst us, and his own opinions there- 
upon, under the queer title of " Men and Manners in 
Britain — or a Bone to Gnaw for the Trollopes and 
Fiedlers." Much of what he saw evidently met with 
his most cordial approval, mixed with a pretty con- 
siderable modicum of genuine admiration. 

The general post-office and its vast machinery ex- 
cited his wonder — he calls it ** one of those tremen- 
dous concerns with which this world of a city ahoundsy 

The custom-house he says is another inammoth 
concern ; and after noticing with astonishment its 
magnitude and its multitude of clerks and tidewait- 
ers, he adds — *' They have a comfortahle arrange- 
7nent here : — just as the clock struck one I observed 
a number of small boys come in with four raw oys- 
ters and a piece of bread on a plate, and set it down 
on the desk by each clerk ; and I thought this was 
preferable to running out to an eating-house." No 
doubt he did ; for it was founded on the very prin- 
ciples upon whicb he, the outcast son of a poor nail- 
er, became a wealthy citizen — viz. a saving of time 
and jpence. Republican and economist as he is, he 
nevertheless mentions with particular laudation the 



GRANT THORBURN. 267 

fact that no competent officer is ever discharged ex- 
cept for bad behavior, and that when they have 
served a certain time they are allowed to retire on 
full pay for life ; " and I think," says he, " this is a 
politic and just arrangement. But in America (he 
adds) we manage things otherwise: no matter 
though a man may have lost an eye, an arm or a leg 
in fighting for his country's rights; no matter though 
his goods have been pillaged, his dwelling burned 
and his wife and children driven to look for shelter 
through the freezing snow of a winter's night ; no 
matter though he has served the publrc with fidelity 
and honesty since his appointment in the days of 
Washington ; no matter though his salary is barely 
sufficient to keep soul and body together, he is re- 
moved to make room for some lazy, hungry^ political 
favorite.''^ This is a pretty considerable unkind cut 
at the best of all possible republics, by one of I'.e 
specially adopted and most republican children ; 
and it is the more unkind for being too true. 

In reference to the many charities of the British 
metropolis, he says : *'I saw nothing in London that 
pleased me so much as the charitable benevolent in- 
stitutions;" and then having enumerated the hos- 
pitals and schools, and the vast sums voluntarily 
given for their maintenance, he adds : — 

" But independent of these sixteen thousand chil- 
dren who are fed, clothed and taught, you may see 
forty thousand Sunday scholars every Sabbath picked 
from the streets. Here then are fifty-six thousand 



268 REMINISCENCES OP 

children, who might otherwise be prowling abou . 
this mighty Babylon and learning the road to the 
gallows, snatched as it were from destruction by 
these friends of Christianity, and their feet directed 
into the paths ofpeace and usefulness!" 

In looking at this statement, which is rather under 
than over the truth, we may see what a large amount 
of sweet is in London thrown into the bitter cup of 
human wo. "Never was there found in any of the 
cities in the world, ancient or modern, so many asy- 
lums for alleviating the miseries of man as are to be 
found in London. I saw much in London to please 
the eye and instruct the mind, but nothing gave me 
such a feast of reason, and such a flow of soul, as 
to walk out just as the last bell commenced ringinij: 
on a Sabbath morning, and to meet in almost every 
street, at almost every comer, some free, parish, 
some charity or some Sunday school ; to see them 
in dresses which were the fashions of the days in 
which their schools were founded, many centuries 
ago ; their broad-skirted long coats of mixed gray 
cloth, their red jerkins, their buff leather breeches, 
their blue worsted stockings, their well-blacked 
shoes and polished brass buckles, and white bands 
under their chins like little inbiisters, all neat and 
clean, hand in hand, with smiling happy faces, some- 
times 500 in a line !" 

The police of London also comes in for a share of 
his especial praise. He says — 

*' I have heard much and read more about the 



GRANT THORBURN. 269 

wickedness of London ; about sharpers and pick- 
pockets by^^day, aud about thieves, robbers and mur- 
derers, by night ; but I have walked in almost every 
street, and at almost every hour of the day and night, 
sometimes alone and sometimes in company, and I 
never received an uncivil word or met an interrup- 
tion from any one. I have gone to find a name and 
number three miles from my lodging, through a 
labyrinth, and knowing nothing of the way, save the 
direction of the compass and inquiry at the corner 
of every street, and never failed of attaining my 
object. I found the policemen to be very obliging ; 
and I have frequently been accompanied by one or 
other of them, nearly a quarter of a mile, to show 
me the street I wanted." 

He also bestows much laudation on our cabs and 
omnibuses, as cheap convenient and appendages to 
society ; fr©m all which we may learn that he was 
not only in London but in luck. 

So far Mr. Grant Thorbum's book is " all tarts 
and cheesecakes,^^ as governor of Barataria would 
have said ; and now comes the " bone,'^ which he 
throws forth for Mrs. TroUope and the Rev. Mr. Fid- 
dler to "gnaw;" and certainly it will require much 
gnawing before it can be swallowed : — 

"Nothing can exceed the good-natured humility 
of many ladies and gentlemen of the British metro- 
polis ; for, instead of employing their coachmen and 
gi'ooras to drive, they mount the coach-box or dick- 
ey themselves, while the servants are lounging by 



270 REMINISCENCES OF 

their sides or lolling within the carriage. The 
coach-box t^le-a-tcte between ladies and their grooms 
has a most engaging effect in the crowded streets of 
London ! The drive in Hyde-park, and that noisy 
crowded thoroughfare Eond-street, that puppet-shew 
stage of fashion, presents many scenes of this kind. 
Kere may often be seen a female-flogging driver 
(improperly called a lady) dashing along in her lof- 
ty curricle with one lounging gToom at her side, and 
two others in the dickey behind; thereby creating 
wonder, fear and pity in a gaping multitude." 

This is severe enough — if not particularly true ; 
but it is nothing to the epigi'ammatic severity of the 
queer little repubhcan's peroration ; for says he — 

" I believe London is the only place in the world 
ivhere men and women of fashion have raised them- 
selves to a level with their coachmen and postillions !" 



Jolin Gait. 

"Unbroken spirits, cheer! still, still remains 
" Th' Eternal Patron, Liberty ; whose flame 
" While she protects, inspires the nobiesi strains, 
" The best, and sweetest far, are toil-created gains." 

On my return from Europe I was assailed on all 
sides, lengthwise and sidewise, on highways and by- 
ways, with the questions, ** Did you see Mr. Gait ? 
Where is Mr. Gait 1 Do you know any thing of Mr. 
Gait ?" Now, (as they say at the Hall,) to put the 



GRANT THORBURN. 271 

matter for ever at rest, I will tell what I saw, heard, 
and know of him, and also (as he has given his opi- 
nion pretty freely about me) I will tell what I think 
of him. 

I saw him in his own house, and a snug little one 
it was, at Barn Cottage, near London, in November, 
1833 ; he looked then as if he had been blown about 
in a whirlwind, having just escaped from a violent 
attack of j)arahjsis, or some such outlandish name 
given by the doctors ; it was in the morning, as they 
say in London, or eleven o'clock a. m. I thought he 
had not been at the toilet, as he had not shaved, and 
his hair was all in an uproar ; his spirits, however, 
were good, and his countenance lit up when he saw 
me ; he said, " the chirp of the bird was not more 
gladsome to the prisoner of Chillon than my pre- 
sence to him when I entered his room ;" the disease 
had sunk to his feet, and it was with difficulty he 
could walk from the fire to the sofa, but his mind 
was as bright and his hand and his pen as quick as 
ever ; his conversation is both amusing and instruc- 
tive, and his plain, honest, hroad Scottish tongue sang 
like music in mine ear. I called on him frequently ; 
he was always cheery and seemingly happy, and his 
health was good, though his countenance was pale, 
the effect of confinement. 

Mr. Gait was born at Irvine, in Scotland, second 
of May, 1779; he is six years younger than myself, 
but I think he looks old enough to be my grand- 
father. His father was a merchant, and in pretty good 



272 EEMINISCENCES OF 

circumstances ; he received a liberal education, al- 
though it does not appear that he distinguished him- 
self at school, for his mother, who was a woman of 
strong mind, used to say of him, " my Johnny is but 
a dull and sleepy scholar." He entered a counting- 
house in Greenock, where he continued for several 
years. A circumstance much to his praise occurred 
at this period of his life. Being eldest son, he was, 
of course, heir-at-law ; his father died, leaving a will 
by which he intended to make his widow independ- 
ent, but, owing to some informality, the property fell 
into the hands of John, who instantly executed a 
deed in favor of his mother, thus fulfilling the inten- 
tions of his father. In 1801 or 2 we find him writing- 
miscellaneous articles for the Greenock Advertiser. 
In a few years after he was engaged in a mercantile 
career, in company with a Mr. McLaughlan, in Lon- 
don, which blew up at the end of three years. In 
1809 he was at Gibraltar, in company with Lord By- 
ron and Mr. Hobhouse, from whence they sailed for 
Sicily. We next find them, like three old fools, run- 
ning ahoot the hraes and biirns of Greece, spending 
time and money for nothing, for I cannot find that 
either they or he wrote five grains of common sense 
on the subject, whereby the public might be bene- 
fited ; while at Tripolizza he conceived a scheme 
for forming a mercantile establishment in the Levant, 
to counteract the Berlin and Milari decrees of Napo- 
leon — (stupendous !) This castle in the air, like the 
war-proclamations of Governor Van T wilier, soon 



J 



GRANT thohburn. 273 

evaporated into smoke. The first decidedly success- 
ful appearance which Mr. Gait made as an author, 
was in a series of articles that appeared in Black- 
wood's Magazine, styled " the Ayrshire Legatees ;" 
this was in 1820 ; he afterwards published " The 
Annals of the Parish," and other popular works ; but, 
in my opinion, Sir Andrew Wylie was his chcfd'ccuvre. 
From 1824 to '30 he was occupied as acting manager 
and superintendent of an emigration company in Up- 
per Canada, which appears to have yielded him a 
thousand pounds per annum. It appears he managed 
the concern with a great deal of activity, and no 
small success ; the company, however, did not pros- 
per; whether he was in fault, or whether the compa- 
ny needed a scapegoat, I know not, but he was dis- 
charged at last, in what appears to have been a very 
Jiarsh manner. In London he again commenced the 
business of an author, and in quick succession 
produced seven or eight successful works. In the 
midst of these honorable exertions for the support of 
his family and the discharge of his debts — for both 
objects were in his view, and the latter, to a certain 
extent, accomplished — he was, in July, 1832, struck 
with paralysis, which confined him to his room for 
many months, and has left him, as he mournfully ex- 
pressed it, three parts dead. From all I could discern 
in conversation, however, his mind still retains its 
wonted vigor, which shows that soul is superior to 
matter; the hoiler of the steamer may be sound, but, 
if the machinery gets crazed and out of order, it will 



2/4 REMINISCENCES OF 

not work to the impulse of the first moving cause, 
namely, the steam. But to return to Mr. Gait — he, 
like most men of genius, has more wit than money ; 
he has earned large sums, but knows not how to take 
care of it ; so it was with Walter Scott, and so it was 
with several great men that we have known in this 
same State of New-York ; but all of them showed 
their honesty by giving their all to pay their debts. 
I was informed, by those who knew Mr. Gait, while 
I was in London, that he had paid his debts till he 
had almost made himself a beggar. 

My readers are aware that Mr. Gait is now dead. 



From the Boston Courier of March 15, 1845. 
Diet and Health. 

•' In my youth I never did apply 
" Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood : 
" Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
" Frosty, but kindly." 

My esteemed, friend 'Buckingham — By the by, your 
name reminds me of a story I heard my father relate 
sixty-five years ago. There's little doubt but you 
have heard it — but no matter, a good story and a 
good sermon are nothing worse of being repeated. 
Buckingham was a deist, Lord Rochester a profligate, 
and .an awfu' hand amang the lassies. They were 
•walking in a field where a boy was herding sheep ; 
coming up, Buckingham accosts the boy with 



GRANT THORBUllN, 275 

My pretty boy, pray can you tell 
Which is the nearest way to hell ? 

The boy replied : 

By Rochester, as some do say ; 
But Buckingham's the nearest way. 

My father (who died a few years ago, in his 93cl 
year) added, God made this rebuke the means of his 
becoming a humble christian. But this is a digres- 
sion, (as an Irishman would say, before he begins his 
story.) I was going to acknowledge the friendly .no- 
tice of the wee man arC his muckle advertisement you 
took in your paper last week, and, for fear I forget, 
I will now request you to send me two copies of that 
same paper. The one I saw was sent me by friend 
Hall of the Commercial. I gave it to my grand- 
daughter, who is named from my dear Rebecca— 
(see Gait's Laurie Todd.) A gentleman requests one 
to send to London, and another to send to Edin- 
burgh ; so if you will send two copies in such a way 
that Uncle Sam don't shave too deep, I will esteem 
it a favor — direct 576 Broadway, next to Niblo's 

Garden. And now, my friend B' -, among other 

good deeds wherein you have had a hand, I esteem 
you the more highly, because I think you put the 
cap-stone on the monument ; but let this pass ; it will 
be remembered when you and I are in another world ; 
better serving (I hope) the same good Lord, who has 
led us and fed us all our days. For my own part, I 
think I have received more of the kind mercies of a 



276 REMINISCENCES OF 

bountiful Providence than falls to the lot of most 
men. During fifty years I have been in America, I 
have not been confined by sickness one day. I have 
three sons and three daughters, not one of vv^hom has 
given me a sore heart ; I have twenty-six grand- 
children, tw^o of them married. I am now in my 
seventy-third year; my health as good, my personal 
feelings as comfortable, and m^y heart as light as it 
was when in my twentieth year. I read without spec- 
tacles. In fact, my spirits at times are so buoyant 
that I am obliged to let off steam by writing some 
abstract, unconnected and incoherent ideas — like 
Cobbett and his pigs, for instance ; else I think some- 
times that the boiler in my small carcass would burst 
with pure delight. There is another item among my 
mercies, on which I (though old) look back with de- 
light, that is, the pretty Yankee girl who became my 
wife, was the first young woman in whose private 
company I had spent ten minutes ; yes — and the first 
whose lips I ever tasted. You will laugh at this ; be 
it so, better laugh than cry — the merry man lives as 
long as the sad — so says Solomon ; and were I to 
begin my life anew, I would just manage my treaty 
of peace with the lasses after the same mode and 
form. This little soul of ours is a curious little ar- 
ticle ; heart and flesh may fail ; (though in my case I 
feel it not,) yet in the pleasures of memory the soul 
is as much alive in retrospect as it was fifty years 
ago. In my mind I have sometimes compared the 
soul to the boiler, and the limbs, eyes and ears to 



GRANT THORBURN. 277 

the machinery ; the machinery wears out by using, 
and won't answer the impulse of the first moving 
cause ; yet the fire and the steam are the same ; the 
man of eighty, whose eyes are dim, whose ears are 
shut, and whose arm has been struck with palsy ; by 
the impulse of the soul he may try to raise his arm ; 
it won't answer to the motions of the soul, because 
the machinery of the arm is dead ; though the soul 
is as mxuch alive as when first breathed into the car- 
cass of clay. Seeing me as active, lively and young 
in appearance as I was forty years ago, I am asked 
by my friends how I live 1 I never was drunk in my 
life, and I never eat enough,' I seldom sit ten minutes 
at table, and could eat as much more were I to sit 
till my appetite was cloyed. But enough of this he- 
terogeneous compound. If your business call you 
here, I would be glad to see you — partly for pleasure 
and partly for profit. I have commenced business 
anew. I can't live without employment, and country 
work is not to my taste ; besides, I was followed in 
my retreat by all the world o£ fashion, not only on 
the continent, but many from Europe ; six pound- 
cakes and six glasses of wine (first cost one dollar) 
may do very well once a week, but when it comes 
three times a day for three months, it won't pay ; be- 
sides, I was not master of my own time for a day. 
Now, when they come to see Niblo's Italian fiddlers 
and rope-dancers, men-singers and women-singers, 
live elephants and monkeys, they can see Laurie 
Todd next door, without fee or reward ; besides, I 
24 



278 REMINISCENCES OF 

am ten thousand dollars lighter than I was seven 
years ago ; but it went, neither by speculation, gam- 
bling, nor drinking, but purely by the visitation of 
God, (as the coroners say ;) therefore it never lost 
me an hour's sleep. 



stocking iCnittins* 

"' Sliould they a vain show of work assume, 

" Alas ! and well-a-day ! what can it be 7 

"To knot, to twist, to rangB the vernal bloom ; 

" But far are cast the distaff, spinning-wheel, and loom.*' 

Going up and down the canal I was sensibly struck 
with the unhappy situation of the lady passengers 
during our voyage. They altogether consisted (from 
appearances) of traders' and farmers' v/ives and 
daughters ; indeed on the whole route I saw but 
one solitary pair of what might be csWed Jashionables, 
and this was a man and his wife who had been 
fifteen years married, and having no children, but 
plenty of money, were trying to kill time, and run 
away from themselves by posting to the springs, and 
when they got to the springs behold the fountains 
of pleasure were dry, no music nor dancing, no 
cards nor whist, back nor fore gammon, no courting 
nor scandal, no marrying nor giving in marriage, no 
nothing, for mirth was suspended, and the bitter 



GRANT TIIORRURN. 279 

waters of Mara were flowing alone in their down- 
ward and solitary course ; our friends therefore 
turned the faces of their steeds to the falls of Ni- 
agara, to try if the rushing of its waters would drown 
the voice of imaginary care. 

But to return to the women in the cabin ; there 
they sat from sunrise to sunset, from breakfast to 
dinner, from dinner to tea, from tea till the suspen- 
sion of hammocks, in all the torture of splendid 
misery ; at home their hands had never been idle, 
here they could find nothing to do ; there were se- 
veral entertaining volumes on the table, but these 
ladies did not belong to the reading community. 
(Now you observe, that a great many hours are lost 
in a voyage from Buffalo to Schenectady in a canal 
boat.) One day I took a book and sat down just on 
the line between the ladies' and gentlemen's cabin ; 
all doors were open ; I looked on the book, and list- 
ened to a dish of small talk which was soon emptied ; 
hearing all still and some of them beginning to nod 
on their chairs, said I, ladies, how much happier 
than you were your mothers and grand-mothers, 
when they took a voyage through the Tappan sea to 
Newburgh, Wappengers creek, Catskill or Albany ; 
they always had their knitting along ; time was no 
burthen on their shoulders ; their fingers, their 
needles and their tongues kept pace ; they laughed 
and they sang, they were happy ; as they were im- 
proving time they had no wish to kill time, as he 
flew fast and easily away of himself; they said it 



280 REMINISCENCES OF 

was true, but times are altered, it's not fashionable 
novv-a-days. 

This is the fact, and more the pity. It is one of 
the evils which we have seen under the sun of our 
past twenty years' unexampled prosperity. We have 
seen the daughters of purseproud mechanics and 
purseproud merchants jingling a Jew's harp and a 
Turk's harp, a spinnet and a piano ; but they never 
saw a knitting-needle ; they cannot mix a pot of 
buckwheat cakes ; they know^ not how to mend a 
stocking, or to put the apple in the heart of the 
dumpling. You may say to them, as captain Van- 
derdonk said to the young lady you read of in Paul- 
ding's Dutchman's Fireside, when she said she was 
tired doing nothing; said he, go knit stockings ; said 
she, I know not how ; said he, what then are you good 
for ? Forty years ago we could get wives by paying 
the minister two dollars, that could cook, wash, knit, 
make, mend, and do a great many etceteras too te- 
dious to mention. Now they sometimes pay the 
minister $500 for getting a wife, and what is she 
good for] As she cannot knit, you must pay $300 
for a piano, to help her to kill time ; $500 for pin 
money, to play baby-house ; $200 to a cook to make 
her victuals ; $200 to a woman to wash her clothes; 
S200 to servants to sweep the rooms, and $700 per 
annum for a cage wherein to keep this sweet sing- 
ing bird. There stands an immoveable table in the 
centre of a large parlor; on the centre of this table 
stands a bowl, made of precious wood, china or net- 



GRANT THORBURN. 281 

ted silver ; in this bowl are deposited pieces of gilt 
paper, which denote that Mrs. A. B. and Miss C. D., 
not having any employment at home, are compelled 
to go round the streets to distribute scraps of paper, 
and make a little small talk. Among them you may 
find these words ; " Mrs. Whitesmith's compliments 
to Mrs. Blacksmith, will be at home on Friday even- 
ing, 7th July, at 8 o'clock." Flatt. This is what 
you may call the beautiful simplicity of republicans. 
But to return to the system of stocking knitting. 
I verily believe that if all the idle women in town 
and in country, in steamboats, tow-boats and canal- 
boats, were immediately to commence the-knitting 
of stockings, before seven months the balance of 
trade would be in our favor. Now I think the sus- 
'pcnsion of stocking knitting lies deep at the root of 
this evil. In the good old federal times, when 
Washington was President, his lady was not too 
proud to knit stockings for her general. Then, if I 
remember right, we had only two hosiery stores in 
New-York, one kept by Mr. Winslow, No. 9 Wall- 
street, and one by Gibson, hosier, shaver and hair 
dresser, Maiden-lane. Now look at this picture and at 
that ; here we have upward of 2,000 stocking shops, 
in which, by moderate calculation, three hundred 
thousand pairs of stockings are sold, on an average, 
every week in the year. Now, is not this same 
stocking concern sufficient of itself to kick both the 
beam and the balance of trade in our faces, and to 
counteract the whole exportation of rice, snufT and 



282 REMINISCENCES OF 

tobacco, and every other product of that hot-headed 
clime ] In the unsophisticated times of federalism, 
Washington and Adams, the balance of trade was in 
our favor ; bills on London could then be bought at 
15 per cent, below par, making a broad difference 
of 30 per cent, between the federal and democratic 
reigns. Then we sent our flour to Europe by the 
hundred thousand barrels per annum, since that 
time we have begged from the hungry Hessian a 
bushel of wheat or a chaldron of rye. 

When Washington was president in 1794, he told 
Congress that the best way to preserve peace was 
to be always prepared for war. Acting on this sound 
policy, he, Adams and the federal Congress, had pro- 
cured a few frigates and sloops of war; in one of 
them, Commodore Truxton in the West Indies, and 
Decator at Tripoli, let the world see that America 
could not only build and sail ships equal to any, but 
in fighting them she was second to none. The year 
ISOl was the first year of the reign of democracy, 
and emphatically the first year of the age of experi- 
ments ; a set of fellows who had fiever seen any 
thing larger than a birch canoe, sat dreaming and 
drinking, and smoking and sipping, till they finally 
came to the conclusion that a coast of ten thousand 
miles and ten millions of tonnage would be cheap- 
er, safer and more easily protected by a few gun- 
boats, than they could by a dozen of frigates and 
sixteen seventy-fours. Well, the frigates were sold — 
gun-boats built and sent to buffet the mighty waves 



GRANT THORBUEN. 283 

of the Atlantic, some of them and their crews met a 
watery grave, and thus ended the first experiment. 
The next experiment was to destroy the old United 
States Bank, that the people might have leisure to 
live by catching fish on the banks of the rivers. 
The same experiment is now in the full tide of suc- 
cessful operation, and thousands of our population 
are catching shrimps. The next experiment was a 
metallic currency ; this might be intended to give 
employment to all the mules and jack-asses on the 
continent, in carrying bags of dollars and panniers 
filled with gold, by way of saving the expense of re- 
mitting by mail. 



From tha Boston Courier. 
Ad-rertisetneut Extraordinary. 



Grant Thorburn — an old acquaintance— of whom we have 
heard nothing for some years, has an advertisement in the New- 
York Commercial Advertiser, which is as good as an auto-biography. 
It delighted us to see the honest little Scotchman once more in 
print. Pleasant reminiscences of the evening and the morning which 
he once spent with us were awakened, and imagination brought 
back the tones of the old gentleman's voice, as he sung Elgin,, 
Martyrs, and Dundee. It is not our custom to advertise gratis, but 
there is something so truly characteristic in his advertisement, and 
something so pleasant withal in preserving a memorial of so clever a 
specimen of humanity, that we copy it without further preface. 



284 REMINISCENCES OP 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

In 1799 the subscriber commenced business with 
three pots of geraniums, a monthly rose, and 15 
dollars' worth of seed. The seeds grew till they fill- 
ed the whole continent — the rose blossomed till it 
spread into a tree, and the little birds formed their 
nests under its branches. Presently there came forth 
a host of pretenders, boasting of what they could do ; 
they did nothing. In 1818 appeared William Cob- 
bett. This same Cobbett in 1793, '4- and '5, publish- 
ed the Porcupine's Gazette in Philadelphia ; its ob- 
ject was to prove to a demonstration that all repub- 
lics were humbugs — that kings only had a divine 
right to reign — and that the Americans were a set 
of consummate rebels. The mob tore down his 
office, made ^2 of his types, and scattered his porcu- 
pine quills in their native air. He fled to England, 
returned to New-York a full-blooded radical Demo- 
crat, and opened a seed-shop at 62 Fulton-street, 
where he sold ruta baga at one dollar per pound, and 
black pigs for ten dollars each. For a long space of 
time you could hear nothing in Wall or Exchange- 
streets but Cobbett and his black pigs — Cobbett and 
his ruta baga. The consternation was similar to 
that at Frankfort when the man rode through the 
streets with the long nose, and still the wonder grew 
whether the nose was a paper or a timmer (wooden) 
nose. He vowed he would drive Thorburn from the 



GRANT THOSBtTRN. 285 

boards with his black pigs and ruta baga in less than 
six months. Before twelve he closed the concern, 
and again sailed for England. Naked he came into 
America, and naked he returned from thence; his 
whole goods and chattels (a few minor articles ex- 
cepted) consisting only of ruta baga and smoked 
hams from the hind quarters of his black pigs ; he 
shipped one case, however, which by some estima- 
tion was beyond all price, viz. a rough Albany deal 
board, formed into a square box, and in this box was 
deposited the profound skull and dry bones of the 
venerated Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense," 
&c. Out of these bones Cobbett meant to have made 
political capital, but they were seized by the custom- 
house at London for duty, and sunk (if report speaks 
true) in the deep gi^een sea. 

From this subject it may be profitable to observe 
how similar are the movements of political quacks 
in all countries and at all periods. It is but a few 
years since that our political jugglers turned the 
world upside down about Morgan, his dry bones and 
split skull ; Louis Philip, too, and his French rad- 
icals, must needs parade the bones of Bonaparte 
wherewith to make a bank political. 

But enough of this long preamble. It is only 
meant to let his friends know that Grant yet lives — 
his eye as clear, his head as sound, and his health as 
good as in 1801 — and this being the first day of 
Spring, he is provided with the usual supply of goods 
(as they say in Pearl-street) to accommodate his 



286 REMINISCENCES OP 

friends ; and his being only a branch from the tree 
at 15 John-street, the seeds, on trial, will prove 
good. American and European Flower-seeds just 
received. Bouquets prepared for the ladies in the 
neatest order. Catalogues gratis. Gentlemen sup- 
plied with Gardeners, &;c. Grant Thorburn. 



From the Philadelphia Courier. 
Gait's Laurie Todd. 

We understand that anew edition of Gait's " Lau- 
rie Todd " will be published in a day or two, with 
explanatory notes, by Grant Thorburn, the well 
known model from which this admirable work was 
wrought. 

In relation to Grant Thorburn, we were recently 
indulged with the perusal of a letter written by him 
to a friend in this city ; and we were delighted with 
the spirit of pious thankfulness for the good he has 
received, it breathes throughout ; and no less so by 
the cheerfulness and kind-heartedness also exhibited 
by this venerable philanthropist. He writes that 
*' during fifty years and six months 1 have been in 
America, I have not been confined by sickness one 
day. If I live to see the ISth February next I will 
have completed my seventy-second year, and now 



GRANT THORBURN. 287 



my bodily feelings are as comfortable as they were 
on the day I first saw America." Truly the ways of 
the righteous are paths of peace. And long may his 
days be on the land he has adorned as well by pre- 
cept as by example. 



tttE ENDi 



LIBRARY OF 




CONGRESS 




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